That's my bad...(^^;)

Hi everyone, how are you going?

I am doing.. well.. so-so.

In yesterday's blog I mentioned that I had a backache but it has become a bit worse since then(^^;) That's probably because I went for a walk yesterday morning and I also had to squat many times at work.

The reason why I got this backache is that I had too much exercise two days ago. I have been on a diet since this Sunday. What I do to lose weight is to do some walking ( with Ambi), step exercise, muscle toning with light weights and pilates. I don't do all the exercises everyday, of course.

Among these exercises , the ones I really find helpful are walking& stepping and pilates.

when you want to lose weight and tone up your body, you gotta do some moderate aerobic exercise such as walking, swimming, and biking etc and strength training for example, weight training, sit-ups, push-ups etc. So walking and stepping are really good for burning my fat and pilates is good for tone up and sculpt my body. It's also good for my mental health too. I really like pilates because it really works very well! No wonder Hollywood celebrities are going crazy about it. I did pilates 3 days in a row ( but not yesterday due to my backache) and now I can definitely tell the difference around my belly!! It is really amazing and a big wow to me!!

When you go on a diet, which would you care more, about your weight loss or size??

Well I care more about size, I mean how I look rather than how much I weigh. The reason is very simple; nobody can tell how much you weight by the look!! I DO weight myself on a regular basis but I am more focusing on waist size. After all if you just drink some water, that makes you heavier, doesn't it? I don't want to get bothered by it.

Well back to the reason why I got this backache, I did exercise for more than one and half hours two days ago! It's not that I did that long non-stop, I did 3 kinds of exercises for 30 minutes each separately. I had never done those kind of things before, so obviously I got carried away.

And I have my reservations about my technique of pilates. I have been doing pilates on and off for more than 4 years. I bought a pilates book with DVD and learned the exercises from them. But now I feel that as time has gone by, I have forgotten the very important basic part and have been doing in my own way, which might have caused my back problem(^^;) Well I gotta shape up and get back to the book and DVD and learn the technique once again. Pilates was created in order to heal injured soldiers by some doctor and it is supposed to be good for people who have got a backache not causing a backache!

Anyway I gotta rest for a while until the backache goes. I really hope it goes very soon.

The sky is pretty dark now.

Hi everyone, how are you going?

I have a bit of a backache but it's nothing serious.

This week is the third week of Gori's TAFE course and he left for Brisbane on Sunday.

I am getting used to being alone without him, thanks to our lovely pets, Costa, Ambi and six chooks.

It was bucketing down outside just a few minutes ago but now it's let up.

I thought we were going to have a storm this afternoon because it was pretty hot and muggy today. I've been in Australia for about a year and half now and I think I am getting a better guesser about predicting whether or not a storm will come.

Now the sky is still looking ominous, I hope we don't get a serious storm. You know why?

That's because it affects the TV signals, especially the sound. And of course it could cause a blackout as well.  We've got some torch, candles at hand just to be on the safe side, but I don't want to spend a night alone in the dark, you know. 

Well I think I should write English diary more often in order to improve my English.

Writing is a good way of sorting out the grammar things and vocab in the head, I think.

what a nice feeling!

Hello everyone, how are you going?

I am doing pretty well(^^)

My new roster has been working very well for me.

All the pressure  has gone and now my sleeping condition has improved a lot.

It's not that I can sleep like before I started to work, but I know that I did sleep and that's a nice feeling.  So I feel more energetic and stronger, which makes me feel happy and motivated to work and do other stuff such as studying English, exercising and blogging, etc. Gori is still away from home but I am feeling very stable  and confident. You know the last time Gori went down to Brisbane to take the course for a week, I was very vulnerable and I had a hard time dealing with it but now I am not like that at all. I feel very very happy with me!

These kind of things are very normal for healthy people ( I am not telling you that I am not healthy) but for me after I've experienced panic disorder and other health problems, starting working and keeping it up is a really big thing.  When I got the first insomnia, honestly I felt devastated because I thought I might end up quitting the job. That could be a traumatic setback next time I wanted to get a job.  I really didn't want to quit the job easily so I was pretty worried. But now things are picking up. I am sooooo relieved, you know.

twist and turn

Hi everyone, how are you going?

I am doing alright. It's been quite a while since I made the last entry of my blog.

I haven't mentioned this yet in this blog but now I've got a part-time job, which

 is working at a sushi bar in a shopping centre in town!  

I started working in the last week of January. In the beginning I was working 4 days a week, ７-8.5 hours  a day.  I thought I would be OK with this work schedule but after a week I found myself struggling with it.  You know, I hadn't worked almost 2 years, so at first I thought that my body was just not used to the new routine. But things get a bit different when you suffer from insomnia, don't they? Yes,  you are right, I have been struggling with sleeping at night. It was really hard in the first three weeks. I couldn't get to sleep at all especially when it was the night before working day. I must have been feeling some strong pressure or something about the work. Because my roster was pretty tricky, which had 8:30-17:00(Monday), 6:30-14:30(Tuesday), 13:00-8:30(Thursday) and 8:30-15:30(Saturday) and on top of that, my roster changed every week so it was no wonder that I had difficulty in adjusting myself to this new way of living. I thought I would be fine but obviously I was kidding myself.

I wanted to start working mostly because I wanted to earn money. I had been using my savings and as you can guess it had become less and less. So I really needed to make money. And also there was another reason for it, which was that Gori was going to attend a course in Brisbane to become a gas-fitter and the course was to start on the 16th of February. The course is on every other week for 8 months. So actual school time is 4 weeks. This week is the second week of school time and Gori went down to Brisbane on Sunday and coming back on Saturday. 

Anyway I wanted to start working because I thought I would be very bored doing nothing without Gori for a week.  You know A week alone is a bit too long, we've got our lovely pets but still .. you know.. Before I start working I thought I would get used to the job before Gori's school started but it didn't turn out like that. I have to admit that there was one time when I regretted my decision because I struggled .. really struggled without him. I felt very fragile so I even had to cheer myself up in mind in order to keep myself together and  get through it. 

Now things are much better. I talked the owner of sushi bar, who is Japanese and a very thoughtful man and he was kind enough to arrange my roster and  give more suitable one to me. Now I work three days a week, 5-6 hours a day, with no very early shift. It's been like this for two weeks and I feel much better and relaxed. 

Before I was like.. pushed too hard by job and sweated a lot

but now I am confident that I can handle it and I even enjoy it.

Review on the movie Shrek

Hi everyone. How are you going?

I am doing well.

 It's been raining around here so it's pretty muggy, which reminds me of Japanese summer.

Guess what!  Our water tank is full now!! How exciting!

In the last entry I mentioned that I had been working on writing a review on the movie Shrek,

and I have finished it. So It would be great if you read it.  The first draft had a long summary of the movie, 

so I made it shorter in the second one.  Maybe I shouldn't have it in the review but you know, I put a lot of 

effort in it so I just didn't delete it.

Here is the review. ↓↓

＊＊＊＊＊＊＊

Movie review on Shrek                                    

 

‘I have never seen such a well-made animation movie before!’  This was the first impression that came to my mind when I watched the movie, Shrek. Everything on the screen was so realistic that I couldn’t even believe my eyes. This movie was released in 2001 and it was awarded an Academy Award of Best animated feature in 2001. Usually animation films are for kids but with this movie, even adults enjoy it very much. It is a very entertaining and compelling movie.

 

This movie’s main character Shrek is an ugly green ogre (voice of Mike Myers). He lives peacefully all by himself in his swamp. He is frightened and hated by human and he thinks that’s the way it is and he enjoys his lonely isolated life. But one night the quietness gets deprived by fairy tale characters including talkative Donkey (voice of Eddie Murphy), They say they were forced to come to the swamp by the order of Lord Farquaard. So he decides to go to see Farquaard to get his life back, and sets out for a quest with Donkey. He talks to Farquaard and he promises Shrek to give back his swamp in the way it used to be in return for rescuing the Princess Fiona (voice of Cameron Diaz) from the castle guarded by a dreadful dragon. It was an unexpected offer, but Shrek takes it and goes on another quest.  After the exciting battle against the dragon, he manages to rescue Fiona. As they spend time together, he finds himself to be attracted to Fiona but he doesn’t know what to do. This could remind us adults of our first love in our childhoods.

 

Through his journeys Shrek learns to build an indispensable friendship with Donkey and he also realizes that he is not a cruel monster as what he always thought him to be. This scene where Shrek describes ogres as onion because ogres have layers like onion as well could make you feel a bit sympathetic. I think this is a main theme of this movie for viewers, which is ‘ Don’t judge a book by its cover ‘, or’  True beauty is in the inside’ . The more we get to know Shrek, the more we get to find out his true personality, which is very lovable and trustworthy.

 

This movie Shrek is made up of a lot of humor and funny gags throughout the show, which is very amusing and also its computer animation is awesome. Its music is also spot-on to each scene and very effective. Voice actors pulled off their roles perfectly, especially I admire Eddie’s work. His dubbing makes the character of Donkey even more annoying and more lovable.

 

Shrek is a pretty short movie, which goes only for one and half hours. The story is more like a comedy than a fairy tale and there are lots of twists and fun.  It is such a wonderful movie that I can recommend to anyone.

＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊

Thanks for reading. Have a nice weekend!

I am an early bird today! & my homework from school

Morning, everyone. How are you going?

Gori and I were early birds this morning. We got up at 5:45 because Gori was going to work for 

his sister and her partner today. They are moving out soon so they need somebody to clean up

 their house. They have big farms, and there they grow cattle and milk cows so they are leading 

a pretty hectic life every day. They don't have time to do it themselves. 

Gori, on the other hand, he is still on his school break. He tried to find some casual jobs 

during this one and half month break but no lock. So this job is going to be good for us. 

Well now I am awake, but I am not sure if I can stay up this way in the morning. 

You know, if you get up earlier than the usual, you always get sleepy after a while.

I have a lot of free time today so I am going to study hard!  

I've got to work on my homework which is writing a movie review. 

I was supposed to write a review of the movie 'Australia' but I don't know why but

it's not shown at the movie theatre in town anymore. I wanted to go to see it with Gori 

in the beginning of this month but when I checked out their schedules,  they had already

finished showing it (^^;)  Oh well, seems like it was not so popular, wasn't it??

 So I've decided to review a different movie, which is my favourite, Shrek! 

It's a kind of old movie now ( released 2001) but I like it very much! 

To tell you the truth, I DID work on it yesterday but it ended up summary of the movie (^^;)

not a review... Well I was a bit disappointed, because I spend quite a long time on it.. 

Anyway I will do my best today.

Have a nice day, everyone.

Let me sleeep!!

Hi there, how are you going? 

I am feeling very tired this morning because I had a broken sleep last night. I went to bed around 10 pm ( I am living  like a grandma ^^;) For some reason I didn't get to sleep smoothly and it took me about 30 minutes to fall asleep,which is unusual to me.

 I was woken up in the middle of night by some strange noise from outside, there is a carport right next to our bed room. The sound was something like .. something was walking on the gravels there. I thought it might be a chook which had been locked out so I thought If I am right, I had better put her back in the chook pen. Because Ambi had been off her lead at the time, so she might do some naughty things to the chook. I was very drowsy but got up and tried to find out what's going on there but it was too dark to see anything. After all I got overwhelmed by sleepiness, I convinced myself that it was a cow roaming around and went back to bed. 

 I was asleep for a while..... but again, I was woken up... but this time by the sound of rainfall, which was pretty hard.  I thought...raining is good but not now....

 And this morning,  I think it was around 6, Gori woke me up. He is not an early bird usually, but this morning he jumped out of bed at 6! 

Ohhhhh pleaseeeee. Let me sleep. 

I asked Gori about this morning and he said he had woken up by Ambi's annoying noise!

Thanks for reading again. Have a nice day, everyone.

↑They are Gori's heifers.

Say cheese, Costa!

This is our cat Costa. He is castrated so he is a half boy.

He used to be Gori's mum's cat. He is about 10 years old.

Costa: What ? Are you taking a picture of me?? 

            What a hassle! Ok ok but take a really nice one, alright?

Waiwai: Ok, I will try...

Costa: Ahhh, my face is very itchy!! Have I a got a flea?

Waiwai: Stay still, please. 

Costa: I am sorry about that. Ok now.

Waiwai: Say cheese!! 

He looks pretty dignified, doesn't it?

done with the chair make-over!

Hi, everyone. How are you going?

I've finished with the chair make-over so I wanted to let you know.

It took me such a long time because it'd been raining and Gori was using the patio for building his work bench. He used some steels and welded them and ground them. I couldn't stand the noise when he was grinding. Now it's over so I am happy. I gave the chairs a second coat of varnish and had Gori screwed their seat pads back to them. 

These are the chairs before the make-over.

↓We took this picture when Ambi was a puppy. 

 We guessed this chair was going to be her favourite. 

but....... 

We were wrong... the very next day we found out...this ↓

Ohhh nooooo!

Well now, let's see the same chairs  after I've given them a make-over...

ta-da

Well what do you reckon? I like their antique touch. 

Hey chooks! Behave yourself! & My favourite pasta

Morning everyone, how are you going? 

Gori and I have got a veggie garden in the backyard and we also have some veggie pots in the front garden. Gori made these pots from crates ( What a handy man he is!) We grow basil, rocket and spring onion in the pots. They were thriving until about 3 weeks ago but now almost all the leaves are gone (especially rocket) because our chooks pecked and ate them all!

We've got a chook pen which Gori made from scratch last May. The chooks are in the pen in the morning and evening and we let them out for a few hours in the afternoon as play time.  The chooks love to be freed. As soon as we let them out, they make a bee line for Ambi's dog house and start eating Ambi's leftover dog food! Ambi try to guard her food but she always fights a losing game. We usually put fences around the pots but our cunning chooks always find a way to the pots and enjoy the veggies there without our knowledge (^^;) Now the veggies look very shabby and that discourages me to take care of them(^^:)

Anyway we need to grow some new seeds and replant new seedlings there.  I think the place where we have the pot now gets too much sun so veggies get dehydrated very quickly.We gotta think about relocating  the pots as wall. I have never grown veggies before so I don't know what I am doing but I will learn the hang of it soon as the time goes by, will I?

I made basil source with our fresh basil, walnuts, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. I made a basil cream source pasta with it and it turned out very well! I loved it! It reminded me of my favourite pasta that I ate in a Italian restaurant in Japan!! It was sooo good that I ate the same pasta 3 days in a row!! ( Crazy??) But unfortunately, Gori didn't share the same opinion with me(><) He said he prefers normal cream source pasta.　I can't believe it!

↓↓I made this with bacon, sausages, onion, shitake mushrooms and thickened cream．

Taking up a new hobby?! Furniture make-over

I have been working on  giving our old furniture a bit of a make-over.I wanted to do it because I wanted my friends to come over to our nicer and  more comfortable house. But I can't afford to buy new furniture so I decided to make it pretty by myself!

I started with wooden outside chairs which have been outside for a long time so all the paint on them has come off and their surfaces were very rough and dry. One of the chair's seat pad had been torn off by Ambi ( naughty!)  so it really needed to be fixed. I began with painting  them with brownish oil paints and after the paint got dried, I painted  varnish on them to give them a glossy finish. I also made new seat pads for the chairs. I bought some materials and foam from shops and cut them round, then stapled them tight at the back of the pad. I am not finished completely yet, I think I should give them a second coat of varnish and then it's done. 

It's been very interesting and has become a great change of pace!  I am very happy with my job. Gori says they look like brand-new ones!  I am almost finished with the chairs but haven't touched the table yet. When it's all done, I will put their pictures on my blog!

 

This is our dog Ambi.↓↓ She is the one who chewed off the seat pad!  But that happened when she was a puppy. She behaves much better now!

Our final battle against the pipe blockage

Hi everyone, how are you going?

It's rained quite a lot recently, which is good because I had been longing for it for a long time. It had been so hot recently so the rain cooled down the air, thank goodness. It's overcasting  at the moment and I am expecting some more rain, we really need more water.

Well speaking of water, we finally found out what the cause of the pipe bolckage was, which had been a real pain in the neck!! We had had this trouble since we moved in here. We'd tried some pipe cleaners (chemical), pipe cleaning machines both manual and electric, one worked OK  but none of them worked fantastically. When another serious clogging started, and that was about a week ago, we decided to take a drastic measure, which meant digging the pipe out! We assumed that it's the end of the pipe that had been clogged  but we didn't know where it was. We don't have a sewage system like cities and all the gray water goes down to the paddock in front of the front garden. So the pipe is in the ground which makes us feel no wonder the pipe got clogged. You know, lots of dirt and stones can get inside the pipe very easily!

 Anyway Gori speculated where the end was with his educated guess and he started to dig, I however, wanted to help him but nothing special to do so I became a supervisor lol. We were very fortunate because we got the pipe at the first go!  Soon after that we found the end which was clogged really badly. (><) Gori got rid of the clogging and all the gray water and yukky stuff came out(^^;) （Sorry if it's too disgusting)

Now all the clogging is gone and water goes down the drain soooo smoothly!  We feel much better and very thankful for the fact that it didn't cost us fortune to fix it up. We were worried that we might have to rent some big digging machinery if we wanted to dig the pipe out but it turned out very well without it! We are very happy !!

This is where the end was. (It's hard to see, isn't it?)

Looking back on last year and resolutions for this year

Hi everyone, how did you spend your New year's break? Did you have fun with your family or friends? Me? Well honestly, it felt like just another ordinary days to me. 

I can't believe that year 2008 ended and year 2009 has started. Time really flies, doesn't it? My goal for last year was to get used to the Aussie way of living. I didn't do anything very special or active at all but I really needed that time so it's ok. I have to admit that I went through some tough times last year because of this change of life. Back in Japan, I did almost all the things by myself but here there are a lot of things I have to get help with. It gets very frustrating sometimes because I can't do it in my way. You know, everyone has his or her own way.

Anyway I am glad that Gori and I have pulled through them together. I feel that those tough times have made our bonds even more stronger.Is this what they call 'a blessing in disguise'?

 

Let's get back to the new year's, well  have you made your new year's resolutions yet?

As for me, I've got three goals for this year. 

・To improve my English skills a lot and take an IELTS test (within 6 months)

・To get some qualifications for job such as a business course and start working or Start working as a unskilled worker.

・To get fit ( including losing weight)

I really want to start earning money soon but to do that I think I should improve my English more and also I should  build up more strength.  I guess my English is good enough for unskilled jobs such as  fruit picking or working in a factory, something like that. So I guess iI should take it into consideration, shouldn't I? 

Welcome to my new blog!

Welcome to my new blog!!

I am Wai wai. I'm Japanese, living in QLD, Australia. I came here in December 2007. I live with my Aussie boyfriend, a cat ,dog and six chooks! They are all my good family.

I like baking cakes, singing, exercising and studying English. I have been learning English for quite a looooong time and I love it! I really want to improve my English more so that  I can get  a job and become more communicative. I am also interested in learning good things for my body and mind. I am susceptible to stress so I want to learn good ways to handle it and be strong! 

In this blog, I am going to write about my cute pets and  life in Australia and thoughts on lots of things in English. 

Please feel free to give your thoughts and comments to any articles!

Thanks for coming, I hope you enjoy my blog and visit me again soon (^^)

Best of luck,

Wai wai