buter's BABY blog

First up, a moment to reminisce: once when I was very small, I must have been reading the dictionary and I learned a new word "procrastinate". I was really impressed with this word, because it seemed just right for me - put everything off till the last minute and then come through with flying colours. Well when I went to share this new exciting word it came out all wrong. I intended to say "Mummy, I know what I want to be when I grow up - a procrastinator!". But somehow my very little brain mixed that up and it came out "Mummy, I want to be a prostitute when I grow up!" My mummy nearly had a heart attack and told me to go read the dictionary again. And that's how I learned what a prostitute is.

So anyway, sprint forward through time to now, 2005, and I've been at school in some form or another almost continuously since 1980. Apart from a 2-year gap just after finishing my undergraduate degree, I've been studying for more-than-twenty-years. You'd be forgiven for thinking that that's impossible as I only look 16 years old - but really who am I kidding. The studying has aged me. But in that 20-or-so years I've been really good at procrastinating. Somehow I always seem to get everything done, but at the last minute. The most organised I ever was, was in Year 12 we had to do a writing folder over the course of 6 months and I started it 3 months before it was due. But that was actually fun.

So right now, I'm studying for my MBA, and this is my last semester ever. You'd think by now, having done an undergraduate degree, an honours year, and 11 subjects of my MBA, that I would have learned to not leave uni assignments to the last minute. For one thing they tend to need a fair bit of research and so you'd think it would be obvious to the assessor that I'd done it all in the last 2 weeks.

Being my last semester ever* of study is pretty cool, apart from the Pareto principle. That's something I learned about in Unit PDM303 - that old saying how you get 80% of the work done in the first 20% of the time, and the 20% that's left takes the remaining 80% of the time. Or that 20% effort puts in 80% of the work, or any other way you want to put it. What I'm trying to say, is that now that I'm eleven-twelfths (that's about 90%) of the way through my degree, the last 10% is mighty hard for me to get motivated about.

So anyway, my last assignment ever is due tonight. At midnight. I put the finishing touches to it on the train this morning at about 9.30am. So I was 14.5 hours ahead! Who ever said I was procrastinating? I'm just really sleepy from the late nights over the last 2 weeks... My last exam ever is on the 8th of November, people. So don't ask me to be friendly in the two weeks leading up to it because I'll be cramming ... yes, leaving all the studying to the last minute ;) ... can't wait to finish ... all I need is a pass this semester, that's all. A pass.

Oh and did I mention I was working on it on the train? That's because I have me a cute new lappy. It's a Compaq Presario and it's a wiiiidescreen and it's entirely too cute for words. Now that the assignment's over I'm planning to watch Buffy DVDs on the train in the mornings :)

*The term last semester ever is here to placate DTM. He said recently if I have to do another semester of my MBA that it's divorce material. I've been using the MBA as an excuse to get out of housework for 5 years. I guess he's figured that out.

Yeah I know you've all been badgering me about updating my blog. Well here's an email update that may work, or may not, in which case you'd never know, but for that reason it's probably also going to be shorter than most. Just like me.

So anyway I was caught out recently saying "Bother!". Now this is not something that would normally catch me out, except that someone else said in response - Oh, it's Winnie the Pooh! And after I recovered from my double-take, I thought, hmmm, it really is Winnie-the-Pooh. Those who know me well (all 2 of you) know that most of my quotable quote repertoire comes from the Princess Bride or from Clueless, with a little bit of Buffy thrown in. But in fact I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a large chunk of my vocabulary that comes from Winnie the Pooh. After all, it was my favourite book to have read to me when I was little. As I got older I enjoyed Alice in Wonderland as well, but that's another story... (ooowww, bad punning..)

So anyway, back to "Oh Bother" and the quote that names this post. I wouldn't say it's my most favourite Pooh Bear story, because they're all good. But anyway this one, where Pooh gets stuck in a hole, is just funny.

"Having got so far, it seems a pity to waste it"

Ciao....

So one day recently I got new specs.

Of course the question most people ask is "do they make me look smarter" - but as you all know, I'm a highly intelligent person - adding spectacle-induced smarts would be sort-of redundant.

So noooo, what I went for is the Clark Kent effect. When I wear my specs, I'm a totally different person. See, here is my alter ego writing postcards from EnnZed .... because that's far too boring for super-me.


I had this flashback recently, about that Twisties ad, where there is a woman sitting in the cinema and she opens a packet of those cheesy munchies, and tall, dark and handsome steps out of the movie screen and walks down to her asking if he can have a Twistie.

When I mentioned it to my colleagues, they looked at me as if I was insane.

Then all of a sudden (2 weeks later) I realised that I was missing the vital ingredient - the name of the original movie where that happened!! Yes, folks, it was indeed

(drum roll please)

The Purple Rose of Cairo!!

A flick by Woody Allen, starring Mia Farrow (of course) and Jeff Daniels. Whoever he was.

Obviously I recalled the film name because of the new specs.

[I don't think I want Twisties any more after going to their homepage:
"Twisties is the number one extruded snack brand with lots of tasty flavours and fun shapes to choose from. Twisties makes any snack time “FUN”tastic with all the guaranteed quality and freshness that Twisties is famous for."

Err... the number one extruded snack? When did I ask for truth in advertising? Was this written in Engrish?]

Woohoo!!!! What a fantastic time we had over the last 2 weeks. I just know you all missed us terribly.

I had fun! Here's a pic of me with my teeny tiny skis. Yes, they are 150cm long, yes I know I'm a shorty.

So we skied at two places - the Remarkables and Cardrona, which was awesome. It was beautiful weather, there were hardly any people, and just so much interesting terrain/trails. You can follow my route on the trail map - I had a ball of a time, riding up one lift (MacDougall's), going across the mountain (Shaun's Way) to the next basin, skiing down to the base (Captain's Basin) then across the mountain (Comeback Trail) back again and riding up Whitestar to do it all again! The entire round trip was at least 30 minutes. So it was an excellent run. And my skiing has improved, though I'm still tentative on the blue runs ... as long as they're wide I'm ok!!

We also did a 4WD tour around some of the LOTR sites. Mostly it was "this patch of forest/river/hillside is very similar to one that was digitally enhanced and edited to appear as Lothlorien/Isengard/hillside in one of the LOTR films". It was an excellent way to see the countryside though, and a nice way to spend a morning. Tammy our driver was really knowledgeable about the countryside, the local flora, and history of everything we drove through.

Then we flew back to Sydney and overflew the entire of the southern/western suburbs. It's kind of sobering to come from a country with about 4 million people (plus or minus 100,000 Aussie tourists) back to a city with more than that. But if you don't have the contrast I guess it makes the holiday a bit less special. So - Queenstown was awesome, I thoroughly recommend it to anyone. If you want to know more juicy details just email me - if you wait for me to post it then you may be a long time waiting.