Whoo-hoo!! I'm so very very happy!! No, not because I'm leaving for a 3.5 month overseas trip in 10 sleeps but because the little toolbar with my text options has appeared again in blogger! YA-HOO! I can now change my font, the colour of the text, put pics in and the BEST thing, JUSTIFY my text!!! I HATE having text left aligned - it MUST be justified!
I am in two minds about my imminent departure. It has been very very stressful getting everything sorted out and I feel like I need a week lying in a country cabin with some truly magnificent chick-lit and many many mini chocolate easter eggs before I am ready to tackle a collossal always-on-the-go back to back touring trip where I will have to be permanently postive, ready to party and sit most firmly on my oh-so-awful temper. However, I am desperately trying to do uni stuff. I still have to complete data analysis and turn this into a most insightful article ready of acceptance into a scientific journal with a high impact factor and then convert this paper into an attention-grabbing and readily understood giant laminated poster.
To be honest, I have zero excitement. Zilch. Nada. This is most worrying. How can I not be excited? Golly, if I can't muster any enthusiasm before I actually depart then how on earth am I going to manage shepharding my charges around Europe?? Well, maybe that is the problem. I feel like I have been herding most obstinant chickens, not planning a fun-filled trip to Europe with some damn good friends. I have just been so angry with them all, barring Felicity. They all have squillions of dollars squirrelled away and refuse to part with it. We went out for dinner last week to celebrate the March birthdays of Felicity (22), Frieda (23) and Katie (23) and Rose didn't order any food. She ate at the boarding house where she is a boarding mistress and gets free food before we met for dinner. And then, instead of ordering a nice cocktail she orders a port. A PORT! Who the hell orders port instead of food? When I inquired as to why she wasn't having a delectable cocktail, she said that port is much more alcoholic than cocktails and she could have two for the same price as a cocktail and be drunker. Rose has a fulltime job in a government dept where she greedily grasps any overtime, no living expenses, doesn't even have her own car any more as she's driving her parent's old one, and works about 15-20 hours, usually weekend penalty rates with us as a waitress. She has a big share portfolio as she's been channelling all of her fulltime wage into shares this past year, and when she's ready to buy a house her parents will give her $40,000 towards it. But she won't eat out at dinner because she's saving money.
And Katie, don't even get me started! She actually tried to get out of the tour we had all booked and paid for without telling any of us. The travel agent told me. The travel agent Maria told me how awful she felt refusing to give Katie back her money for the tour but it just wasn't possible, and how very distraught Katie was, in tears and all that. I was totally bamboozled and had no idea what Maria was talking about. I thought it might have something to do with Katie's parents coming to Europe once our tour was over. "Don't worry about it, Maria, Katie has arranged to meet her parents the day the tour ends in Paris," I said. "Oh, but I felt awful. If it was my daughter who had committed to a tour and then found that she couldn't afford it and needed her money back I'd want the travel agent to do everything possible to help her out." I was so shocked. Katie is from a very wealthy family, they have a few rental properties, an old almost-mansion in a tree-lined street, and her dad has some high-powered job in Melbourne where he commutes to each week. Plus Katie is a workaholic and we have calculated must have at least $100,000 saved from 6 constant years of work including modelling promotional work and a refusal to spend a dollar. She only ever eats either brucetta or garlic or herb bread for dinner when we go out. She hasn't had her hair cut at a hairdresser for I think 8 years, she cuts it herself. Oh, plus her parents have put together a share portfolio for her. And she tried to get out of our tour, made our travel agent feel awful, and didn't tell any of us. Felicity's theory is that once Katie's parents decided to go to Europe Katie didn't want to go on the tour with us anymore when she could stay with her parents and have them pay for everything. I think that might be right on the money.
So this is perhaps why I'm not excited. Also contributing a little is that I have worked so very hard with bootcamp and the gym and stuff to get as strong and fit as I currently am and now that it all going to disappear and I will be back to baby weights and humiliating beep-test scores in bootcamp. I know, woe is me with huge overseas holiday looming!
Monkey and Dancingfairy, if you want to meet up when I am in jolly old England you can email me on ceciliamaybrown@hotmail.com Let me know soon though please so I can work it into my itinerary. Yes, I have an itinerary. I am pedantic. I know it.
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