There’s something wrong with the world today, I don’t know what it is. Something’s wrong with our eyes. We’re seeing things in a different light, and

Bushfires are a way of life in Australia particularly in the dry summer months. So normally you hear about it in the news and you feel sorry for the loss of wildlife and property and sometimes human life but mostly it’s as remote as the monsoon floods in Bombay or the hurricanes in the US. But not this year… this year is looking to be the biggest bushfire season in I’m not sure how many years and they are predicting these fires will go on for the next three months and a few millions of hectares of lands will be destroyed in the process. But what is really really frightening is how the smoke from these fires burning a couple of hundred of kilometres away has been consistently making it to the city at least once a week until the wind changes again. I am looking out my window and literally not able to see beyond a couple of blocks... the smoke has been getting into the ventilation systems of all the buildings and there’s this constant burning smell in the air and sometimes our eyes water… and this is us, sitting here safe and sound in the urban jungle… I can’t even begin to imagine what the fire fighters and other rescue workers are going through on the front lines and all the other affected communities and towns. And everything goes back to climate change and global warming… I remember in class 8 or 9 I wrote a critical composition on global warming and my teacher said it was damn good… I don’t think I chose that topic, it was just given to us but I can’t even remember what I wrote. What on earth could I have known about global warming then? I vaguely remember something about the ozone layer and now at 25, that’s still all I know. And that the big giant hole in it is right above Australia! So as distant as the effects of global warming and climate change are predicted to be, they’re already here. And let me tell you, walking on the streets when its 35 degrees, with the sun being blocked by a grey ash smelling canopy of haze is incredibly eerie. Almost like a ghost town…

But on to cheerier topics… like Christmas… what an incredibly cheery time it is… they call it the silly season and we have been having the silliest times with Christmas and birthday parties galore. At my work one which was an all day thing at the Yarra Valley which is a premier wine district close to Melbourne, we had like a mini Olympics thing all afternoon and me, little ol’ unfit me, managed to scale a 12 metre rock climbing wall. It was insane… like getting off the ground was hard and then I just kept going and suddenly I’d get stuck not knowing where to move my hands or legs next and I’d just hug that freaking wall and say, fuck, what now??!! But eventually I made it to the top and abseiled down and it was just awesome. So…never say never! Then they tried to convince me to join the company’s girl’s team for a triathlon next year which includes a 400m swim, 4km run and 10km bike ride and in the rush of all that adrenalin I said yes. But having had time to reflect and return to my lazy unfit lifestyle, I have completely changed my mind. But anyway, my team which was Team White won pretty much all the activities and so we won the whole thing and we all got little Christmas hamper thingies as presents… they have some awesome presents/events at this new workplace of mine. We got overnight type bags as our Christmas presents and had like two Christmas parties and then we’re constantly being invited to smaller team bbq’s, coffees and lunches. Like today, we had a coffee catch up as part of one team and then I went to a team lunch as part of another team. Good fun it is and tomorrow is my last day before heading off to Christmas break so even better.

Outside of work, attended various other sessions… went to a Christmas party like no other complete with Bad Santa and dirty as Christmas carols… was so funny. I got a lovely Santa hat with lights all around it so with batteries, I was lit up like a Christmas tree. Oh my god, I have so had it with shopping… shopping for people, shopping for the house, even grocery freaking shopping, when will it all end? I have been to the stupid shops pretty much every day in the last two weeks and I am so over it. I hope I don’t have to shop until June next year at least (although we all know I’ll be back at it long before then…)

So aunt and uncle have made it to New Zealand and will be arriving here tomorrow evening. Tomorrow is my last day of work before 10 sweet days of unbridled relaxation and entertainment. The four of us are heading up to Port Douglas on Dec 26 for some sun and sand and a long awaited glimpse of the Great Barrier Reef – so I can cross at least one of the natural wonders of the world off my list then. And then we’ll be back here for New Years… last year Goa, this year Melbourne. Different, but should be good still.

Last year this time I was in Madras and fully revelling in all the food, fun and attention. This year, I feel more remote from Madras than I’ve felt in a long time. There are always periods where I lose complete touch with what’s happening and feel disinclined to make an effort to find out because it’s nice for someone else to make the effort for a change.

The thing is though that home is where the heart is and my heart is still firmly ensconced in the house I grew up in and the room my sister now inhabits, with my parents and my baby sister and the can’t-live-without-‘em four legged friends. I posted a Christmas card to my parents today and when I was picking it, this one said something about thanking them for making Christmas so magical when I was a child and it’s amazing how thoughtful they continue to be even now and oh my god, it was all I could do to fight the tears back being in the crowded store and all (well, a few escaped) because every word was true and I feel guilty sometimes that I just don’t let them know how much they mean to me and take them for granted and even get really annoyed with them when spending long periods of time with them in the same house. So if they read this blog, they would know but of course they don’t so I hope the card will suffice.

Merry Merry Christmas and see you on the other side of 2007.

Can you hear me when I sing… you’re the reason I sing… you’re the reason why the opera is in me…

So November has also passed. I honestly can’t account for how quickly the days are flying by. It seems like just yesterday I was shopping for my trip to India but that was a whole year ago. And this year, there will be no India. There will most likely be no India next year either so that kinda sucks.

The other day was the first day of December. It was also the first official day of summer and at least the last evening in November provided a warm welcome to this season unlike the so-called spring which was really just a horrid extension of winter this year. So that evening at a balmy 30 degrees, we sipped Coronas on the balcony and then took in Borat at the cinema. I don’t know how to comment on this movie… it certainly had its laugh out loud moments but mostly it was just crude and well, if you’ve watched a lot of the Ali G shows with Borat clips, you know exactly what’s coming like when he goes to a formal dinner party and what kind of polaroids he’s going to show of his life back home.

But getting back to November, time really flew because I had way too many things on with the concerts, changing jobs, slacking off at home in between concerts and jobs, etc., etc. So to the concerts, I was left with Pearl Jam and U2. Pearl Jam was awesome in a very oh-my-god-he’s-so-insane kind of way. He started off all normal concert-like but by the end he was not even pretending to be sober anymore and just fully skulling straight from a wine bottle and jumping all over the place and at one point he fell really badly but just jumped right up again. Oh, it was truly entertaining. People say the Red Hot Chilli Peppers are mad to watch on stage but I watched them live in 2002 and they don’t even come close to Eddie. I have Jeremy recorded on my phone from that evening!

Then 1.5 days later, it was time for U2. Numerous die-hard fans began queuing at the venue in the wee hours of Saturday morning. We knew we had no chance of competing with that so we got pretty drunk and stoned instead at my house and only got there about 6:30 pm. We found ourselves a whatever spot (I say, whatever because it was no great shakes and I couldn’t directly see the stage, only the screens, but seriously, as much I enjoy U2 and all, I have no desire to be crushed in by some mad people...) and made some trips to bar/bathroom before Mr. Kanye West got on stage. Of course, everyone sang along loudly to Gold digger and then fully lost interest… haha. In between Kanye and U2, there was some 45 minutes of set up and I went to the bathroom in all this and was in such a tension that I’d miss their opening song which I knew would be City of Blinding Lights but anyway, all was good and I got back well in time. And then they were on…

Fuck, it was awesome! I don’t know what else to say. I just didn’t want it to end… I knew every single song except for one song but the videos for that song were so tripped out, it didn’t even matter. It was such a perfect night – there was U2 singing the bestest songs, all the ones I wanted, and it was a warm night so the dome of the venue was open so I alternated between looking up at the screens and up at the stars… Bono was a dream, The Edge was brilliant, Adam Clayton was the furthest away from me and rather in the background, and there was Larry Mullen Jr. beating away at the drums with a really sweet smile on his face the whole time and with his military cut blond hair looking like a poster child for the Germany Army. He is my current favourite of the band – he has two Labs who he has dedicated albums to… so sweet. So anyway, I had goose bumps most of the way and shed a tear or two here and there and just remembering it now is making me feel all funny… was just so good. Obviously I was very happy with City of Blinding Lights, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own and One, and then he played With or Without You and I swear there were shivers running down my spine the whole time. The final song was Kite and it was sooooo good… and I knew it was the last song so that made it extra poignant and he kept singing, I know that this is not goodbye… I sure hope it ain’t… come back U2, come back! So, that was that… I have City of Blinding Lights and One recorded on my phone from that evening.

So the next big milestone was that I started my new job and then that weekend we went camping to Wilsons Prom which is the southern most tip of mainland Australia. Never been there before and never been camping before and both were great experiences although our roughing it could hardly have been considered roughing it. Still, we did the whole tent bit and it wasn’t our fault toilets with hot showers are conveniently located 200 metres from all campsites and that Big City Dude brought his beloved bbq along and kept us happily supplied with hot dogs and rissoles for all our meals.

So we also attempted these hikes to some beaches and up some mountains and all. One of these beaches is called Squeaky Beach because the sand allegedly squeaks when you walk on it, and it actually does. It’s awesome! The second day we hiked up some Mount Bishop and a dreadful little black snake crossed the path in front of me… now, it’s hard to fully express how absolutely I detest and abhor all things reptilian but snakes, in particular. And so, it was my greatest fear something like that would happen and of course it had to. So next time, I will say come on out, snake and meet me if you have the guts to and then maybe I won’t have to face it. But on Saturday night, when I was walking back from the toilet with a trusty torchlight in hand, a wombat crossed the path in front of me and that was pretty cool. We spent Sat night singing loudly around the lantern (unfortunately it’s bush fire season and campfires are a strict no no so we had to make do) and then went to bed relatively early cos of exhaustion from previous night drinking and early morning start and wilderness trekking. But the stars that came out that night were a sight to witness… Starry starry night only!

In other news went for a Jamaican themed birthday party last weekend and I have to say I was very hopelessly dressed and looked most un-Jamaican but birthday girl had done much decorating and had some horrid looking dreadlocks for extra measure. But the bestest and funniest part was the batches of special brownies that had been prepared and oh my god, it was hilarious. The thing is we’re used to it and we still got so fucked and laughed so much and there were all these other people who never smoke and went a bit mad (in a hilarious manner) and then apparently there were also people who ate nicely and had no idea they were special. Far out man, haven’t laughed so much like every 2 seconds in so long. So, today is her birthday and since she reads this blog apparently, Happy Birthday Ms. Jamaica and welcome to blogworld… hehe!

This week I decided to take another health and fitness stand and went to my apartment gym for the first time in 3 months and worked out a bit. And then last evening I went rowing, my second time in Oz, and arms and back are feeling slightly fucked and the constant friction from the oar has torn a sizable chunk of skin off my thumb… ouch! But seriously, I compare the Yarra with the Cooum and they’re not that different… perhaps one just smells a bit less than the other.

And finally, a moment to reflect on Christmas which is fast approaching… this year I will be here of course and will have two members of the family with me apart from my boyfriend and it should be really good and I know it’s going to be a bumper year for presents cos my aunt always buys me awesome clothes. And I get to trim the tree again and I’ve gone out and bought lots more Christmassy stuff and I have my work Christmas party on Friday and various other Christmas things planned and it should be great!

Tomorrow I start at a client site so I don’t know when I’ll be back again but I thought I’d better update it before it died on me fully for the year.

I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams

Ok, its been very long and I don’t really feel like *completing* the snowboarding saga. Just some quick bullet points on the rest:

• The Saturday afternoon was as tiring as the morning
• The instructor tried teaching us how to snowboard backwards although why she thought we would be able to do this when we could barely snowboard forwards, I don’t know. Suffice to say, I tried this twice and took two terrible tumbles and decided that I would stick with the forward henceforth
• The instructor also tried to get us on this strange thing called the Poma lift which pulls you upslope by you holding on to a cable attached to this circular thing. Now for skiers, it didn’t seem so bad… they held that circular thing between their legs and it just pulled them up very gracefully. For snowboarders, you hold it under your arm and what happens is the thing actually drags you but your snowboard still doesn’t move so your body gets pulled but your feet don’t move and guess what happens next… that’s right, you fall on your fucking face! Again, suffice to say, two attempts at this has turned me off “pomas” for life!
• The instructor made us feel very cool when she said ‘Now remember, snowboarding is an EXTREME sport’!
• The instructor taught us how to point our arms to change direction and slow down, etc. and much fun was made of my earnest Staying Alive attempts… all I can say is, it fucking worked!
• After the lesson (and a brief 4 pm snack which served as lunch) we bravely attempted the mountain again. This time, my pointing helped me have a really really good run for about 5 secs and of course I got very excited and thought, ‘Ha, there’s really nothing much to this snowboarding business’ and then of course, everything came crashing down as usual as I totally got confused about which arm to point in which direction. B, who watched the entire debacle from the ski lift had much to say about this to everyone else.
• Halfway down the mountain, I decided to quit for the day. By now my head was hurting so much, I felt sure some brain damage must have been sustained. So I unstrapped my feet and dragged the snowboard behind me much like taking my dog for a walk and wouldn’t you know it, I slipped even when off the snowboard as it somehow sneaked up under my feet. Next thing I know, I’m on my ass again and I’ve let go of the damn board and it goes hurtling down the mountain at breakneck speed. Everyone around yelled ‘Incoming’ and luckily no one got hit. So that was that…
• Sunday we tried skiing and that was slightly calmer. At least I could glide off the freaking lift without losing my balance and falling on my ass. But there were still moments… much easier to break a bone whilst skiing I feel… legs splayed in opposite directions, skis stuck in the snow, etc. etc. Anyway, managed to have a couple of successful runs (fell only once or twice) so there is hope yet… but I think I will give snowboarding another go when I do return to the snow.

And the beach is still my holiday destination of choice, but the snow makes a good winter getaway.

Last week, I went to Sydney twice on freaking work. The first time was on Monday morning, so that was a real blast… waking up at 5 am after two days of the most physical activity I’ve undertaken in many months… I could barely lift my laptop into the overhead compartment. The rest of the week was a blur and then I went to Sydney AGAIN on Friday morning. Whoever said corporate jet setting would be much fun and highly glamorous has got it all wrong. Its just tiring and boring and plays havoc with my ear pressure. I’ve now been to Sydney four times on work and still haven’t seen anything except the Opera House or done anything except eat at McDonald’s (Sydneysiders are not that keen on Subway, I’ve noticed – there are never any around)!

The pic below I took from my hotel room when I last stayed in Sydney a few months ago!



Ok, its Monday evening and I am forcing myself to go sign up at the gym next door. I have three months to get fit before Christmas and my visit to India where I can say ‘Up Yours’ to everyone who made fun of the weight I’d put on the last time I visited. Also, my tummy must be super toned for Neha’s wedding (of Neha C fame) as I am going to be one of her bridesmaids. Yay… I can’t wait (for the wedding, I mean, not the gym)!

Baptisms of Fire (on ice)

So here I am again… bruised and battered but still in one piece.

So there we were all together in my house on Friday afternoon… 6 snowboarding virgins (2 snow virgins even) and one ex ski instructor. The peace pipe was smoked as it always is at the start of a journey and we were off in two cars. The snow team included me, my boyfriend S, my housemate T, my friend R and her boyfriend K, S’s friend from work B and our friend V.

Roadtripping with my two favourite allies
Fully loaded, we got snacks and supplies



The drive was nice… for once we didn’t argue about the music and just listened to everything that played. And most of it was singable so quite naturally I didn’t shut up for six hours. I even found this CD that I recorded maybe 4 years ago when I first got a CD burner and it was full of songs I hadn’t heard in ages. You Are My Religion, for fuck’s sake and Unforgivable Sinner. I’d forgotten those songs even existed. And as always, I gazed out the window at the rolling hills and country towns and villages and thought of other trips I’ve taken in the past… trips that start out as this one did, with the smoking and the drinking and the driving and the laughing and the singing.

We saw many sheep along the way. Ah, rural Victoria, is there anything quite like it? Please excuse me, I think sheep are damn cute.



So anyway, many smoke breaks and toilet breaks and food breaks later, we caught a glimpse of some snow covered peaks.

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be



We drove up the mountain (Mt Hotham, it was), taking corners at terrifying speeds as always… boys will be boys after all. Eventually, it was 9 pm by the time we had settled in and eaten dinner and started sipping our first drinks. By 10:30 pm, we were SMASHED!

To kick things off, we started playing Fuzzy Duck but I think everyone’s just become too damn good at it these days… fuck-ups are rare and few between. Fuzzy Duck is this highly entertaining drinking game which involves people saying Fuzzy Duck in a circle until someone says Does He. The direction is then reversed and the phrase changes to Ducky Fuzz. After a few drinks most people mess up and say things like Fuck He Does and Does He Fuck, and when you mess up, you slam a shot! So anyway, we’ve been playing this for a long time at my famous fruit punch shot nights but I’ll save those experiences for another day.

We gave up on Fuzzy Duck and started playing Dumb Charades. S, T and I were on one team against the other four and we were on a fucking roll, I kid you not. We’re not normally that great or anything but that night, we just had some kind of connection going and were guessing everything in about 10 seconds and the other team was just losing miserably. And sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to guess… T was trying to charade a sounds like for ‘brass’ and acted smoking some ‘grass’. We got what he was trying to do alright, but S and I must’ve said every single other word we knew for it from ganga to Mary Jane and just completely missed the basic, first word I ever learnt in the whole business of smoking up. By the end of all this shouting and screaming, we were extremely smashed and decided to go hang outside in the snow.

The photo below was taken to capture my comic attempts at drinking my drink with my gloves on. It made for such a blogworthy pic though since it preserves my anonymity ;)



Outside in the snow we drank and took drunken photos on someone’s parked snowmobile and bonded with various other guests who also came out to hang in the snow and shared the love (the weed love, that is) and smoked many cigarettes (this was also terribly difficult with my gloves). All in all, it was a very fun night and we went to bed extremely late. The "single" boys were in a room full of bunk beds and it was much fun to climb up to the top bunk and pretend one was on the Brindavan Express.

Barely five hours later, we were rudely awoken by the bright morning sunlight. Apparently sunlight is always much brighter in snow towns because of the sun reflecting off the snow – I had not thought of this before!



We showered and dressed in many layers (at least I did, I don’t take chances with the cold) and drank much water to combat our hangovers and spent some time renting our gear. So on top of all my layers, I had a puffy snow jacket and waterproof ski pants, some horrendously heavy snowboard boots, and a very cumbersome snowboard. Thus armed, we set off for the slopes.

As mentioned before, B used to be a ski instructor and he was on skis while the rest of us were on snowboards and he was still able to give us some basic pointers on snowboarding. After about half an hour of gliding around on flat terrain, we became overly ambitious and decided to take the ski lift up one of the slopes even before we had our beginner’s lesson which was some time away.

The ski lift itself is obviously a terrifying experience on its own. I fell trying to get on it (you try getting to the lift from the gate on time with one foot strapped into your snowboard and the bloody seats don’t stop for long enough) and I fell getting off it (again, you try gliding off the lift with one foot strapped in and then having to get out of the way quickly before the next set of people get off it)!



Once I had regained my composure somewhat, the enormity of what we were attempting hit me and terrified me no end. We were at the top of a very tall slope… we couldn’t even see the home stretch, and we couldn’t even stand up on our boards without sliding off in the wrong direction or falling on our asses. If it had not been for B, who very patiently helped me up every time I fell, and who prevented me from falling every time I tried to stand up, and who tried to show me how to stand without sliding or falling, I would’ve surely slipped off the side of that mountain onto the hard road below.

So we attempted the long slide down the mountain. Every couple of feet, I would have a tremendous fall that rattled every single bone in my body. The fun part was that every single one of us was going through the same so once I fell I’d look around to see who was around me because surely one of them would be nearby, also on their ass. Some of their falls were incredibly funny to witness as I’m sure some of my falls were. Getting up (and staying up) after having fallen was certainly the hardest thing to do. And if anyone had told me that I would actually feel hot on a snow covered mountain in 4 degree Celsius temperature, I would’ve laughed scornfully at them. But it was hot and I actually began to regret my many layers because snowboarding is hard work, and the sun was beating down pretty fierce that day. So every time I fell, utterly and completely exhausted, I’d lie down on the soft, clean snow for a while and that was pure heaven. Halfway down the mountain, I completely lost my will to continue. I felt that I simply couldn’t lift myself up again. But more than the pain in my bum and my head, I felt I couldn’t take the heat and dehydration anymore and simply forced myself down the rest of the way, half boarding, half sliding and half falling. Phew… just recapping that all has made me slightly exhausted. Also the story is rather long for me to finish now… so, *to be continued*.

Oh, and if anyone wondered about the title of the post, that line from Brothers in Arms kept playing in my head over and over again as I struggled to snowboard. My fellow beginners were my brothers in arms, that long, tiring and yet extremely fulfilling day…

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I’ve witnessed your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms