Role Reversal

Four weeks ago, my job went from being a cruisy 2.5-3 days of work, to being 4.5 days of full-on work. Though it isn’t a full time job technically (it's 4 hours short of being FT), it’s hardly easy going – the work is difficult, the patients are very tiring, and the organization I am working with isn’t very well organized. A lot of paper work, a lot of emails and liasing with managers and narky HR personnel. A very litigious environment to go with it (I've received the first 3 complaints of my 6 year career)

At the same time, Mushie’s job recently finished. She’s not on the beach (or the bench or whatever u call it); she’s in early retirement. Even though I’m not that excited about her laid back attitude to finding work further work (the date for her to finish 'updating' her CV keeps getting pushed back and back. Soon I'll be hearing the whole "but dessy, we're going on holidays to Dubai at the end of Jan, I can't get a job and then take holidays, and then we plan to go for skiing and then the US so it's probably easier if I don't get another job ...) it’s probably a well earned rest (ie well earned – she has worked fairly solidly the entire time we have been in London – except for the 80 something days off work/year we’ve taken)

There’s 2 things I guess – 1) Though, I like to say that I want to be the stay at home man (the housesitter!), I really do enjoy working – particularly working as a physio. I enjoy getting up early to work - my brain seems to function better (it’s the opposite after lunch/mid-afternoon – I’m usually struggling to stay awake – not great for patients!). It’s a good feeling to do a job well and to see tangible results. I’m not saying you can’t get that from being a house hubby, but I definitely didn’t feel that ‘productive’ – even if I had spent the day cleaning house and cooking etc.

2) There’s something that definitely feels ‘right’ about women staying at home to raise the kids, and men going out to work and be the breadwinner. Maybe it’s partly a society thing as in it feels right because society deems it right. For example, I hate getting handed the bill while at a restaurant and having to ask mushie to pay!

However, I strongly believe that God made men and women different, so that they could do different roles. Sure, women can mow the lawn or do labouring jobs, but males are designed to do jobs requiring more strength. I think it’s probably the same with raising kids. People often talk about the bond a mother gets with the baby while it’s in the womb. Women are also supposed to be more intuitive and better multi-taskers – surely that helps with raising kids and keeping track of them.

What does this all mean?? I guess things work out perfectly then. Mushie gets to stay at home, Dessy gets to go to work - where you want to be (keep saying that to yourself!) Oh, and Mushie no complaints when you have to stay at home and we actually have kids! In the meantime, you have to work - sorry!

The darkness begins ...

Since coming back from Africa the last 8 weeks in London have flown by. Thinking back to what's happened, it's a blur of meeting up with London friends, dinners, hanging (ie drinking beer and playing the trivia machine) at the Hobgoblin, getting re-acquinted and hearing Mushie get progressively more excited about her pending unemployment.

Being so busy with all these other things and maybe due to us having just returned from 7 weeks in Africa, but London's weather has been particularly irritating. In Africa we experienced consistently hot weather, beautiful, sigh-inspiring sunrises and sunsets, and minimal rain (it was the dry season) - perfect for getting out and doing things. London's weather really is like 4 seasons in a day - you have to rug up for the cold, carry umbrella for the rain (cause there's no cover), scarf up for the wind, and wear multiple layers in case it gets hot (e.g. when on the tube). It's much more grating than I remember.

Oh, one last whinge - the pain of waking up at 6.30am when it's pitch black outside ... it's fricken bloody terrible, and it's only the very very start of Winter! I swear I'm trapped inside "Groundhog Day". One last English winter!

An Inconvenient Truth

Just finished watching Al Gore's movie about Climate change and felt compelled to blog - what an intriguing movie! To give you the brief background:
* Movie released 2006, based on Al Gore's long running slideshow lecture about climate change and global warming. Al Gore explains in quite a scientific way the current theory of global warming - with presentation of graphs of CO2, temperature, migratory birds etc.
* Won 2 Oscars.
* Al Gore won a joint Nobel Peace prize for the movie (shared with the IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - who helped make the movie)
* According to IMDB.com - "This is the first carbon-neutral documentary"
* Various youtube hits - check this one debunking some of the 'facts' from the movie

Should u see this film? Yes, probably. It wasn't the greatest film, but though essentially it was a like a lecture, it didn’t feel like being back at University (I wasn't falling asleep, drooling on my notes and absently drawing squiggly lines everywhere). In terms of impact to people of our age, and for general knowledge about climate change and how it's affecting the earth, and for a subject of conversation - I would say it's a very important film. I must admit that I'm a bit skeptical re: climate change, and I did find myself trying to pick holes in the arguments. (I didn't use to be! but recent reading makes me think the issue is much more complicated than i previously thought)

My issues with the film -
* For a film that presents like a documentary and passes off a lot of scientific data, while talking about research studies and sample groups, there was more than a few inaccuracies in the film. It one section of the movie he talks about when the ice caps melt (somewhere around 2050) that the seas will rise by 20 feet (about 7m) - flooding The Netherlands, Manhattan, SF bay, Shanghai, India etc. However, the most recent study has predicted that the largest the sea levels will rise will be 59cm!!

Many people have defended the movie saying that it's not the scientific accuracy of the movie that's important, it's about getting the message out there - which is ridiculous when you are talking about a documentary film (scientific based one at that) where accuracy is everything. He states that the presentation has been done over a 1000 times ... enough times to get it accurate?
[ on a sidenote: the film has been distrubuted to every secondary school in UK (also 50,000 copies of the film were given away to teachers in the US) - subsequently, film was taken to court for various inaccuracies of the film. See here. ]

* The film doesn't present the other side of the story. There is a lot of data out there that puts the impact of humans much lower than what has been suggested by Al Gore. One website I can recommend is Junkscience.com which has a lot of interesting, but very technical information -e.g. how much carbon dioxide is actually in the atmosphere? how much is due to human beings? (Check out the answers for those 2 questions!)

Regarding climate change there is undisputable evidence. There is no doubt that the earth's climate is changing - no scientist will disagree with that. However, there is massive doubt about wether human's are effecting the environment. This is where scientists are debating currently. There are a lot of other explanations about why the temperature is increasing and many that don't involve a human element - e.g. solar flare, Earth emerging from a mini Ice Age.

* The film concludes with suggestions about what we as should be doing to make a difference in this world. Interestingly the film uses the credits as the time in the movie to do this - in very small print too. Evidently not part of Al Gore's lecture? Well the list isn't that ground breaking - it's recycle, drive a hybrid car, pray for the world , and spread the word.

The important thing I think is to find out as much as you can, try not to be deceived mainstream thought but to make your own decisions based on ALL the available data. (unfortunately that means lots of reading!!) For starters try Michael Crichton's "State of Fear". Very good book. or this website.

A window into the future

Looking after babies is hard! We had babysat our niece the other weekend – for 3 hours and we had to feed her lunch. How hard would that be?

Really how hard?? That was when all the random thoughts began … what do we feed her for lunch? Will she choke if I feed her some of my meat pie? What do we do with her? What happens if she suddenly gets a fever??? What if she collapses suddenly?!!?!

Well, I calmed myself down cause I figured nothing was going to happen and it gave me great comfort to think … there’s those mums that are like 16 when they have a kid, and somehow they manage not to kill their children – Dessy, you should be ok. Get a grip.

So we fed her chicken soup and pasta – just what we were going to eat anyway – sat around and watched TV (TV is such a good, but evil babysitter! It felt like we were all getting dumber watching the TV) and took her to the local little kids ball playground and spent an hour chasing her up and down the slides, and watching her sink and flounder in the big tub of balls ala Maggie Simpson.

It was exhausting! For the first time ever in my life I could finally see the appeal in NOT having children … it’s so encompassing – the parenting/caring for a child. It’s a cliché, but I can see how your whole life would revolve around your kids and basically their welfare becomes the most important thing for that period until they can look after themselves. It didn’t really ever strike me that way until this last weekend. Am I ready to give up my lazy mornings/evenings surfing the web or relaxing, going to fancy dinners, late nights at friends places playing games or poker until the wee hours?

Realization: that’s why you’re supposed to be married before you have kids. The wife can do that. Thanks mushie!

Oh, and I hope you are managing ok all you new parents!

Sports Mad

So much of my time gets eaten up by sports - reading about sports, thinking about sports, playing sports, training for sports, watching sports. Spending this much time on anything is made even greater if:
1) You can turn it into skill, or money
2) If you have someone to share/debate/watch the sport with

Now I haven't (yet!) been able to turn my sports watching into any money - not through lack of effort or time spent - damn you Sportsbook. Now while we were in Africa, Gobes arrived in London- woot! - now, anytime that I need someone to hit up the pub with to watch the soccer, or someone to keep me in the casino until 2.30am watching a fight he's the "Go-to Guy".

Recently we went to the NFL in London - and I must say, the expectation and build up was much better than the actual game. We bought 90 pound tickets to the sold out game about a week before the game from some random internet website. Waited nervously for 3 days for tix to arrive (called them up once to check on ticket delivery only to be told that they had NO IDEA about delivery - it was after business hours - only in London! Since then they've sent me 3 emails, after the event, to say that my tickets were on the way ...)

Got into the stadium (Wembley is a gorgeous stadium - beautifully designed in and out) after trudging through usual London crap weather, a mass of people trying to get souvenirs that had sold out 2 hours before kick off, a pack of American accents, and being asked for ID by the security staff that were body-searching people on the way into the stadium. When the guard asked me how old I was - I gave him a look like "are you for real?" and said that I was 15 and he said, "oh, you're too young to be searched ..." We promptly went off and bought beers. Ha!

Then with flames, fireworks and flashes from camera exploding across the stadium the players made a dramatic entrance onto the field - running through a tunnel of cheerleaders (thanks to the Miami Dolphins for bringing your cheerleaders! new york didn't :( how can you win without cheerleaders!?!) "How good is this?" we were saying to each other.

Unfortunately, that was as good as the game got. The game was ugly, messy and wet, with the field and ball so slippery that the exhibition of skills was sorely lacking. As mushie would say – “they call themselves professionals but they can’t even catch the ball!!!”. (She usually would add in something about how the best technique to win the game would be to just pull everyone’s pants down to stop them running … that’s why Gobbo came to the NFL not Mushie.)

Would I go again? Was it worth the 90 quid? Definitely and i guess, yeah. I must say I'm happy Mushie didn't come cause that would've meant 180 pounds to watch the game (that's a lot - not as much as a night in the ice hotel, but still), but it was quite a spectacle and nothing beats live competition - the sound of the crowd, the build up, the atmosphere. Just have to roll the dice and hope for a better game next time round! Bring on the NBA!

5 months have passed!

Gee - it's so easy to get lazy and not blog! soo easy ... but then you talk to friends who say things like "I used to read your blog but you never update!" and you know other people that blog regularly (maybe once every sunday, and have have gay-Kerri-Anne Kennelly related reasons for doing so) and that little voice inside you starts to fire up again.

There feels like lots to blog about right now - africa, babies with big testicles, living overseas, missing oz, nfl at wembley etc - but I'm not sure if it's the same feeling i get when i want to go shopping. The feeling of actually "wanting to shop" only overtakes me every 6 weeks or 2 months - and as soon as I've bought one or two items (usually 1-2 games on ebay.co.uk - at 5 pounds) it dies.

well best get started on one of the above posts ... stay tuned!

It's raining babies!

We just found out about another close couple of ours is pregnant! (not sure about the wording of that) All together that makes it 4 couples that have recently announced pregnancies in the last 6 weeks ... ! Congrats you soon to be parents!! Ahhh, the miracles of life!

When to have kids and how long to stay in London is a question we have been struggling with for the last 2 years. I guess for married couples (that want kids) it's about finding that fine balance between enjoying married life and not starting too late - and we all have an idea in our minds what the best age for kids would be.

For me personally, I'm really enjoying the life we have here in London, but it'd be heartbreaking if we put off having kids in favour of travelling the world and seeing sights and then missed our chance to have kids. I hope my "boys" are going ok down there - they've spent a lifetime encased in briefs!

Another consideration (if you plan on having more than 1 child) is how you space having your kids...? I think it's a fine balance again - you want to have them close enough in age to all be able to play together, without making it feel like one continuous pregnancy for the baby factory (ie mushie)!

so many more questions: are we adult enough? are we ready for this change to our lifestyle? what should we name the boy/girl? what if they get the combination of me and mushie's hairy eyebrows???

You alright?

After spending 20 months in London (not including time spent overseas or back in Sydney) and enduring ½ a winter, I can officially say that I’m starting to understand Brits and their mentality.

While this winter hasn’t been that bad, (and surprisingly pretty snow for 2 days) the length of the winter coldness, which lasts approx 6 months Oct to april, and the dark, cold mornings and the dreary wetness has left me right miserable. And whingey. And craving sunshine

It has resulted in a few undesirable effects. Firstly, the cold and misery makes u:

A) Want to stay indoors, preferably warm – what could be better than the pub?

B) Crave comfort foods – hot chips, meat pies, Yorkshire pudding and Sunday roasts covered in gravy. Mmmmm Tasty!

Which inevitably gives u a gut. And makes u pasty white. Not good!

And then u happen to transport yourself away from London to a somewhat warmer country – and despite your brain telling you not to, u find yourself whipping your shirt off to “sunbake” in 19-20 degree weather, exposing ur white, flabby body for all to avert their eyes from. Sorry fellow Portugal travellers - my body needed it!

And my lingo has expanded now too! I now know what bubble and squeak, toad in the hole and spotted dick is - but not what the third one tastes like! :)