Back in Australia....

And where has summer gone? Its fuckin cold, thats what it is. gone are my plans for shorts, singlets and minidresses. Instead I'm wrapped up in distinctly un-chic fluffy blue bed-socks and a massive purple robe.

Add to that a lab that is supposedly 'environmentally friendly' and thus has no heating, and you have a very cold shrunken little lab goddess.

The weather fairies are promising me a warmer day today, perhaps in honour of my birth. AS THEY SHOULD

I can't wait to take over the world - i'll be the best little dictator there ever was. Everyone will celebrate Sheri-day. Whether they like it or not

whats really under the hijab

Sexiness for everyone from Glow Berlin on Vimeo.

Thigh High boots

I am a firm convert to thigh high boots. I loved them when I saw them in Rodarte's show, and lusted when I saw them in Willow. They don't seem to have filtered down into high street fashion yet, and I am loath to spend too much on a trend based fashion item, so I'll be keeping an eye out in singapore next week!

These are droolworthy (*drools*)

The ever present plastic bottle. And the Nappy

So today, a lot of my rellies and I went to Vilingili - the plan was that we would go for a swim, have brekkie and come back to Male'. However, life being what it is and due to the fact that things rarely go to plan, this didn't happen.

When we got to Vilingili, the first thing we noticed was how disgusting the beach was. Plastic bottles, some filled with unidentifiable yellow fluid (Not taking bets on what this was) lay strewn across the beach. Underneath trees lay the remnants of Fridays picnickers. Half eaten 'bai parcels' and helembelihui mingled with the ubiquitous supari packet. And the beach's crowning glory: Used diapers filled with shit, not even buried in the sand and floating in the sea.


We were so disgusted. We couldn't even get ourselves to put our things down. Luckily for us (and rather unfortunately for him), a guy from the island office walked past. One of my cousins knew him and went and talked to him. 10 minutes later, the guy came back with a wheel barrow, 2 rakes and a dustpan. All 18 of us got to work. The little ones picked up empty wrappers, while the rest of us targeted the bottles and nappies.

All in all, it took us 1/2 an hour to clean up that entire stretch of beach, yknow the one that starts near the jetty and ends near the police koshi side.

And just as we picked up the last water bottle, a group of giggly teen girls walked past, taking turns to swig water from a plastic bottle, and uncaring just threw it down near our feet.

I nearly yelled at them. My cousin gave me a warning look. And then he politely told them to take their shit with them.

I don't understand how people can just dump rubbish everywhere.

Inflatable>you

wacking waving inflatable flailing arm tube man
wacking waving inflatable flailing arm tube man
wacking waving inflatable flailing arm tube man
wacking waving inflatable flailing arm tube man!!!!

bit of randomness before I head off for this so called family dinner.


(If you have no idea what I'm talking about, search for "wacking waving inflatable flailing arm tube man" in youtube)

A lack of awesome

Bear with me - I'm feeling a bit emo tonight.

Have you ever felt like you were average? Yknow, averagely good at school, average at extracurricular stuff, average at playing instruments, average at sports.

I have, still do. Take my stint learning piano. I had a teacher who came every day, but I never got beyond playing a few chords.

I studied in India for two years, but never did learn malayalam,even though I was stuck in a hostel and heard it day in and out.

I was ok at studies, a straight A student but never in the top ten

Sports and me are NOT on a first name basis.

I have no hobbies that I stick to (unlike my brother who taught himself how to play guitar and is awesome at it, and also is a fantastic photographer). Oh sure, I dabble in everything, but I fear I am jack of all trades, but master of none.

/emo

I might go listen to some dark depressing metal now.

woohoo, I has internet!

Silly person who lives near me has unsecured wireless internet :D YAY. I type this as I laze on my bed (rather lazily I may add).

I got stood up last night, so no caffeine/chatting for me. Instead I got to watch a rather depressing movie about a prison, while aimlessly surfing the internet. Its kinda sad really. Here I am, in the Maldives, the so-called paradise on earth, where tourists pay gazillions of dollars to come visit, and I HAVE NOTHING TO DO.

I've gone fishing (night)
I've gone to a resort
I've gone to an inhabited rural island
I've gone to an uninhabited island
I've stared at extremists and pointed and laughed
Assorted water sports
The ubiquitous coffee at night (basically an excuse to sit in a cafe nursing a single cuppa while chatting with friends)

so what else can I do in Male'? Any suggestions?

another reason why...

I hate extremists.

Heard on the radio today:

You may be a murderer or child rapist, but as long as you pray 5 times a day, you'll (eventually) go to heaven. However, if you are a charity-giving-kind-etc person but you miss prayers, you're going straight to hell baby, no forgiveness.


Riiiight.

I'm back from my little NYE sojourn bitchez. Back to exciting Male'. Apparently a bit of the island fell off into the sea yesterday. Right near my favourite coffee spot (Sea horse? Sea house? whatever). We shall investigate tomorrow. By We I mean my multiple personalities and maybe someone else. If I feel like having company that is.

nyawww, a wedding

Just got back from one of my cousins weddings - had an awesome time, but even at this momentous occasion, I could not escape the gloom and doom that is extremism.

Idiot extremist relative (IER): "Oh so what are you doing these days?"

Me: "(sigh I know whats coming here) post grad"

IER: "Why do you want to study - females should stay at home, take care of the family blah blah (insert chauvinistic crap), wear buruga, you dress too seductively"

Me: "(blank stare) its because I don't want to depend on men, and also, I dont believe in the buruga and neither do my parents"

IER: "THATS TALKING LIKE AN INFIDEL"

Me: (wtf stare)

BEARDED EXTREMISTS PISS ME OFF

Specially when they give me weird looks and mutter amongst themselves because SHOCK , HORROR, I dare to wear shorts in tropical Maldives.

Oh sorry Mr. Fanatic, shall I fetch my stinky black polyester tent? Y'know, the one that is COMPLETELY unsuitable for Maldivian weather?

No thanks.

I shall continue to flaunt my knee caps, and attract you with my knobbly charms, for I am a DEMON WOMAN. DIEEEEeeeee

opshopping. or not

Mousie and I decided to go op shopping today. Unfortunately, all the opshops were shut. Brilliant scientists that we are, we used our mad powers of deduction to deduce that most opshops are run by christian charities. Most practising christians are usually at church on a sunday morning. therefore going opshopping on a sunday morning is well...very un-scientist of us.

We ended up at chaddy instead. Hurray for consumerism.

You stay classy san diego!

I am trying to (unsuccessfully) fill in my lab book. any scientist out there knows what a tedious/boring/stupid job this is, and I have become very adept at procrastinating when I am supposedly filling in my lab book. yay :D

Life has been such a bore recently. Go to the lab at around 7am, back around 7pm, weekends spent at home. I have no life. Or maybe this is one of those lows.

need to get back to book. only one month more to fill in. aargh

but on the upside; San diego and Italy next year :D WOOO

Things

I am grumpy

why am I grumpy

Things keep getting moved around

Why are things being moved around?

They've lived there for 2 years or more.

And yet new person feels the compulsion to move them to different and random spots

eg: the opened mail from the lounge somehow ended up in the kitchen in a drawer with the tea towels

w
t
f
.


urge to punch things in head = rising

Also, who the fuck leaves all the windows wide open WITH THE CENTRAL HEATING ON?

gah.

I think I might go to bed now.

recession, hollywood style

Clearly they're cutting down on story writers and screenplay writers in an effort to beat the recession hollywood style; Does the new Zac Efron vehicle '17 again' remind anyone of that cute Jennifer Garner flick that came out a few years ago, "13 going on 30"? Its almost the same, just in reverse! and with cute boy instead of cute girl!

13 going on 30:




17 again.

She made up a life - but why?

On an online forum I frequent, we recently had a bit of a debacle regarding a new member. This forum is a fashion forum, and has a number of threads revolving around the lines of "what outfit I wore today" - and new member (lets call her horse&dog shall we?) started posting in it a few weeks ago.

from what we could gather, she was an 18yr old year 12er, living alone (???) in a house in melbourne, who had mega rich parents who lived in a farm on the outskirts of melbourne, a horse-dog and a dog-horse (even she couldnt keep this bit straight), and a wardrobe out of net-a-porter. She owned a brand new range rover, and said that her parents didn't pay for her wardrobe, and that she paid for it herself by working at maccas (her first reply) and a few replies later this changed to "I work at a boutique". Mcdonalds is a bit different to a boutique, but ok, maybe the poor thing was just a bit confused.

Now you may be wondering why I am talking about this at all, but think about this; more and more we are an online society - sure we meet in real life (IRL), but we use facebook to set up events, we set up blind dates online, and we find support groups and make friendships online; often at forums for people with common interests, like said forum at which this incident happened. When this is the case, and people with fake personas come into play, it can be very damaging to peoples trust, and affects other people who may be more genuine.

As it was, I think most people who read horse&dogs posts realised that she was a bit far fetched - most of us were waiting to hear that her bf was a well known footy/rugby player (inside joke). What is ridiculous though is how much she protested when we gently questioned her; instant giveaway.

Moral of the story? If you're gonna make up a fake persona, get the details right, and maybe write it down so you can remember it too. Oh, and dont say your entire wardrobe is 5000$ dresses from NAP. No one has this, unless you're victoria beckham.

RAGE

Rage: angry fury; violent anger

So ends the second week of work. My friend at work said there is always a period of intense rage when you return to work following a long relaxing holiday. And rage there was. It felt like it was a new year, but nothing had changed. My supervisor was still taking liberties he shouldn't, and annoying me with his lack of involvement. I stalked around yesterday in a blind rage, near snapping at anyone who attempted to say something stupid to me.

So I went home. Stopped at the shops on the way home, bought some green tea, made a huge pot at home, and just...relaxed. Stared out the window and came to terms with returning to work.

It made such a big difference! Getting back to work today, I felt like I drank away all my bad karma. I even managed to get back into my work and get tonnes done today. And now I am at home, relaxing with more tea, and a few episodes of torchwood before I start work on my presentation for monday...I suppose a friday night could be worse spent.

lawls

a lawl for yall

It seems like I haven't even been away

First few days back at work and it feels like I haven't even left. Work picked up right where I left it, no slow easing back into it. Monday was a full on 2 day experiment that had been scheduled in my name. I only found out about it when I came in at 8am. Of course, this was one of those collaborative experiments that someone else was doing part of, so I couldn't even put it off and get organized. Oh no. Straight back into it.

ah well. back to gossip girl I guess

At last, some good customer service

As some of you may know, I left the Maldives last night for Singapore, on my way back to australia. I could probably now pass as a fairly experienced traveller, given that I have been shuttling in between countries by myself for the last 16 years. Usually I travel SQ, mainly because of the ease in terms of connection (MLE-SIN-MEL) and exceptional customer service...at every SQ office except the hulhule check in desk. Don't get me wrong, theyre usually polite if brusque, and don't give me a hard time about a few kilos excess. Its just that they don't measure up to SQ's other international staff.

Last night though, an incident happened that made me shed a happy tear; finally, some integrity in maldivian service!

We were all lined up, waiting to check in. I was at the internet check-in line, as I had already checked in and picked my seat - just needed to drop off my bags. A tourist was ahead of me being served. Just as they finished and were walking off, this loud, rude maldivian guy barged in front of me to the counter. He was wearing the uniform of a nearby resort, and loudly demanded that the staff member put his tourists through first "as they were very important". I was about to tell him that there was a queue and he was welcome to join it when the maldivian supervisor interrupted him and told him to go join another queue, as this was for internet check-ins only.

Yay.

5 minutes later, I was getting my boarding pass when I saw the resort fella go up to the supervisor and say

"hey, why don't you do me a favour; these tourists are 15kgs over-weight in their luggage, why dont you put them through for free?"

Supervisor: "I'm sorry sir, but I can't do that. I can put through about 5kgs for free like I do for a lot of other travellers, but 15? I'm sorry"

Resort guy: "C'mon just do it for me, I'll make it worth your while *winks*"

Supervisor: "If I did that for everyone who asked me to, the plane wouldn't take off. The excess baggage office is there *points*"


Good to see that not all people can be bought.

Why do Maldivians always complain?

Lawl. They complain when they don't get flats, and then complain when they do.

Aih foaraa hisaabah huriHAAAA eccheh

Hulhumale' Winners Complain About Down Payment
29 January 2009
Aishath Shazra
print

A number of Hulhumale’ flat lottery winners have complained the Rf100,000 (US$7,843) down payment for the apartments is too high, with many saying it will be impossible to pay the money without resorting to loans.

Speaking to Minivan News, one winner, Fareehsa, 31, a working mother who currently shares a small flat with her parents, said, “I am extremely happy to have won the flat but I have not given much thought on how to pay the down payment.

“I am against borrowing money, but I if I have no other choice, that’s what I have to do.”

But the deputy director of HDC, Nuha Mohamed, has said it is important to remember the development project is a non-profit venture: “We have just included the construction cost and the cost of land in the pricing.”

She said the HDC had received “some” complaints about the down payment and the issue was raised on the night of the draw. “The ministry of housing has said it will try to lower the down payment amount,” she added.

Another winner, a 28-year-old woman who wishes to remain anonymous, said although she had won a two-bedroom apartment she might be forced to give one room to “whoever can make the payment”.

At present, she lives with her mother and six others in the 400 ft² house and since she got married, her mother has been sharing a room with her sister.

“I am lucky to have won the flat,” she said, “but I should be able to afford it. Let’s see how the government can make this affordable for us.”

In addition to the down payment, she said the selection process for the lottery remained unclear. “My half-sister is in the same situation as me. Her dad’s house is 100ft², has two floors and he lives with his wife and kids.

“From this house she probably only owns a space the size of a tile, yet she wasn’t chosen for the lottery.”

As a result, many have complained that some people may have provided false information in order to be chosen for the lottery. On this point, Nuha said the HDC was currently in the process of verifying information given by winners.

“We had over 8,000 applicants so we waited to confirm the information after the draw. It’s easier to verify the information of a smaller number of people.

“We are consulting with various government institutions like the municipality to verify everything. Each category has 50 people on the waiting list, so if the information provided is incorrect, someone else will get chosen”.

After confirming the information, the deadline for the down payment will be announced, she added.

Hulhumalé is built on reclaimed land and was completed in 2002. The 188-hectare island was designed with the intention of housing 60,000 inhabitants from the capital Malé.

HDC allocated 488 newly built flats to the winners of a lottery draw and the organisation estimates 4,000 people will move into the flats.

The apartments, which fall into the category of the Social Housing Scheme, consist of two- and three-bedroom flats.

The flats are handed over to the winners after the down payment, which is 20 per cent of the total price. The remainder will be repaid in monthly installments for the next 20 years.