The End of Days
30/12/2011 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaIt's that time of year. All the nostalgia memes are doing the rounds. Been sticking to the same one for the last few years and see no reason to change
1 What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Signed up for a book binding course in February and a felting course in June. The latter got cancelled so went and did the book binding course again. Had been such a zombie in February that it was pretty much wasted
Made ginger beer the old fashioned way but did not reckon with the evil powers of carbon dioxide. Was so looking forward to popping the bottle in the fridge after seven days brewing away only to find the contents all over the kitchen bench and a big chunk of the bottle missing. It was not a big bang just a big chunk of the bottle cracking and breaking off leaking all the precious bubbles. Got some plastic soft drink bottles since but not yet got around to making a second batch
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Didn't make any but progress on the 101 things in 1001 days has been on a serious go slow. The year started well and got lots of stuff done on the decluttering front but then a four week heat wave hit and the serpent turned into a veritable zombie for the next eight weeks and never really got back into doing stuff
Learned a few interesting tips for getting stuff done during Nanowrimo and may implement them during the new year. Stuff like no visits to Cyberia until completing the daily quota of 15 minutes decluttering or cleaning the house
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
A pretty little cat who adopted the Lair as her unofficial home. At first there were three kittens but now two have mysteriously disappeared
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Well, it's part of the job description when working in a nursing home. One was a really cool old Kiwi - a spring chicken by nursing home standards. She was much sicker than she appeared to be and everyone except her and her family was shocked and surprised when she died. She had made all the funeral arrangements and planned everything before moving into the nursing home and never let on to anyone that she was terminally ill.
It is so often the case that those who are really unwell seldom complain and the dying swan drama queens often have very little wrong with them and go on forever making life a misery for those who have anything to do with them.
Then there's others whose demise was nothing but a cause for celebration - two in particular come to mind. Not just for Izzie but a whole bunch of the other house elves. What a way to live your life that countless people (and not even particularly twisted malicious ones) are delighted when you die
Some one not close but much less famous than she should have been was the artist Leonora Carrington
Saw a certain picture at the touring Guggenheim exhibition and spent nearly the whole time drooling over its strange spooky surreal gorgeousness
This Leonora Carrington is truly a reincarnation of Heironymous Bosch with a hint of Marc Chagall and Arthur Boyd
5. What countries did you visit?
Bits of Cyberia. Much faster and more fun with the big bad Mac
Also one itsie bit of Oz - Bridgetown - which is as gorgeous as ever and a wonderful source for nanowrimo inspiration
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
The 2009 wish was for a decent boss with half a brain. It took until August 2009 for this wish to be fulfilled but she left in the middle of January this year. Now we are back to the usual bunch of losers and greedy goblins
As for next year - to get back the twinkle and finally get some serious gardening done
7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Stuff from the big bad world
The floods and fires here in Oz, the earthquakes in Christchurch and the nuclear tsunami in Japan
Daily mundane stuff
The departure of a very good boss within the first two weeks of the new year. This turned out to be the very bad omen that it seemed to be. Nothing like sadness and the loss of hope to make one a very delectable morsel for hungry dementors
The four week heat wave from hell in February/ March
Gave up on the garden and pretty much everything and became a slobbering miserable zombie for most of it
A visit from the serpent sister and her family
The two visits down south to the spooky little town of “Eden Vale” Always magical and always inspiring
The September street festival in Fremantle. Aside from the hordes of squealing kids, a quirky inspiring and amazing event
The Big Bad CHOGM event. Never seen the city centre looking so much like a ghost town. It was fun spotting the cops and spooks. They were everywhere
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Bugger all. This year was full of grand plans and lots of snoozes. Did get a big chunk paid off the house but did not actually do very much this year. Did keep plodding on despite an unusual amount of gloom and doom and visits from Dementors this year but actually achieved very little.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Letting the Dementors get the upper hand. Ended up neglecting the garden for pretty much most of the year since February
Procrastinating on the Goblin job front. Graduated in Feb 2004 and still not even properly started looking for a paying job counting beans. At this stage it looks extremely unlikely
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
The Izzie eyes have been not quite the same since that damned flight to Amsterdam. A noticeably decreased ability to decipher small print which is becoming increasingly more obvious and worse with each passing year
So many times been unable to find things which turned out to be exactly where they should have been. Was simply unable to see them first time around. The black purse and little black 2011 Scrooge Book were the biggest offenders
Realized that the beady little serpent eyes are past spotting the two elusive constellations of Aquarius and Pisces. These days our star gazing ambitions extend not much further than Orion and Scorpio.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Doing a good job of buying not much stuff but a soft spot has to go to “Alice in Wonderland” and one book bought on the ‘remainder shelf’ in the ‘Eden Vale” library. For a mere two dollars got a big fat green hard back cover of Stephen King’s “Nightmares and Dreamscapes”
12. Where did most of your money go?
The House goblins usually get 70% of the Izzie after tax income and this year was no exception. The froggie tenants departed in June. Kept the house repayments at the same level but by November it had gotten too hard so reduced it slightly.
13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
It was the lack of enthusiasm that was the distinguishing characteristic of this year. There were two heritage festivals to get excited about. One lived up to expectations, the other was good but the Izzie was crazy so it was basically wasted. This was especially frustrating as the Izzie had drooled for two months over the prospect of getting her nose inside the gorgeous green Old Treasury Building in the city centre.
Did get to go on the tour but it was a sticky muggy day and the Izzie was rather distracted and not at all in the magical enchanted mood worthy of such a mysterious abandoned building with such a fascinating past
Oh and the grand Nanowrimo adventure and a certain deck of tarot cards
14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
"Don't Fear the Reaper" Blue Oyster Cult, Same as last year but gave the Izzie sister and her family some CDs to play on their trip down south and all three of them loved that song. Their comments about the rest of the play list were most amusing indeed.
“What’s that song about mummy?” A Vietnam vet depressed about his war experiences (Goodbye Saigon)
Then mummy got to explain that the next one was about a boxer jailed for a murder he did not commit (Hurricane) followed by a tour of the countryside after it had been all nuked (A hard rain’s gonna fall)
The happiness just continued on with “The Wind that shakes the barley” (a folk song where a man commits suicide after his girl got killed by soldiers) and “Past Caring” with another litany of disasters.
Guess they never got as far as a certain Doors song. That would have been turned off rather fast before too many awkward questions got asked.
Yesss. Auntie Izzie is one happy little vegemite
15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or Sadder - about the same. Just emerged from a phase of serious gloomy doomy misery.
Older or wiser Both - we hope
Thinner or fatter? Fatter. Ask Petunia - that's the only bit of Izzie that she is capable of noticing
Richer or poorer? Richer - not only does the serpent have most of the stuff she needs but also most of what she wants. The rent from the two froggies in the house made a huge difference even if most of it simply got added to the house repayments. It's meant keeping the evil plastic in the black to the tune of $500 for most of the year and having an extra holiday even if it was only for two nights in the usual location down south
They are gone now since June so it was time for a bit more belt tightening
16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading, writing, gardening and being happy
17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Being cranky and neurotic. Being overenthusiastic when it comes to weed hunting - ie buying too many plants and then seeing rather more of the poor things dying than should be the case. Buying and planting anything but a cactus after October is just plain stupid
Done lots of “Buy Nothing Days” this year but still got too much stuff. Books are the serpent’s biggest weakness. But even just from op shops, library discard sales and garage sales, still got too many
18. How will you be spending Christmas?
At work from 3-9pm. Will probably be another disgusting muggy hot and humid day fit for nothing but snoozing and drinking whole swimming pools of water. Due to being back at work for 7am the next morning cannot even party after 9pm. Thank God next Christmas is a Tuesday so will have the whole afternoon for nibblies and bottlies
(Turned out to be a gorgeous day. Even work was good apart from the fact that the dirty worthless cheap and nasty goblins did not even leave a stale crumb as a thank you to all the staff who worked on Christmas Day. The expected thing is to provide Christmas Lunch and most employers also offer tokens of thanks in the form of movie tickets or gift vouchers. It was a quiet evening and there were no princesses or free loaders working that evening. It makes all the difference)
19. Did you fall in love in 2011?
What is love?
20. What was your favorite TV program?
The Gruen Planet - a ABC series about advertizing, public relations and spin.
21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Oh yesss. It’s part of the job description. A new toad of a boss, a petty clerk on a power trip and a certain person who just oozed bitter twisted hatred from the very first glimpse. There are few people that Izzie dislikes instantly - about a dozen over a life time come to mind and all have proved to be very nasty and dangerous specimens indeed. Soul sucking vampires or dementors masquerading in human form.
22. What was the best book you read?
Not been reading much at all this year. Did start reading “Alice in Wonderland” but got distracted. Such a wonderful voice. Lewis Carroll is one cool snark. Figuring that there’s a whole bunch of things going on there but not knowing just quite what, went and ordered “The Annotated Alice” for the inside gossip. It is a amazing just how much stuff from this book is now part of mainstream culture.
The other interesting books were the Tarot trilogy by Piers Anthony. Seriously weird and twisted and the guy sure knows his stuff. There were a few big chunks of boring stuff but the story on the whole was wicked and twisted and full of all sorts of delightful strange loops. Being a bit of a tarot freak seriously added to the enjoyment
23. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Adele - Some one like you - a real goose bumps spooky sort of song. Izzie normally has no time for slushy romance but this one is different. Only heard this twice this year and both times were on Radio National. Had no idea it had been a number one and a very big thing this year. The serpent has gotten so out of touch with the music scene lately. Nice to know that sometimes it is the cream and not just the turds that rise to the top
This song very much reminds Izzie of Joan Armatrading’s “The Weakness in me”
24. What did you want and get?
A big purple nano banner (or two if you count Camp Nano)
25. What did you want and not get?
The menopause and a decent boss
26. What was your favorite film of this year?
Did not see many films. But most likely “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” Lots of serpents, Snape and goblins. Even the appalling epilogue came across quite well. Certainly better than in the books.
27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went down south for a couple of nights and spent the time pottering around cafes, sniffing in gardens and generally lounging about
28. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Last year Izzie wrote
"A Boss Voodoo doll that really works when you stick pins in it or invent all sorts of evil torments" and guess what the two froggies gave the serpent for Christmas? !!
Will wait until January to try out the evilness.
As for this year - only time will tell
29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Fashion is an alien concept to this slobbish serpent. But we are rather partial to green hats.
30. What kept you sane?
Sane - Izzie sane? Never ever?
31. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Er. Izzie prefers politics - Hollywood for ugly people. But Julian Assange and The Mad Monk Tony Abbot provided the most entertainment of the year.
32. What political issue stirred you the most?
The ascendance of the ‘Dig it up and ship it cheap to China” brigade who are trashing the country, sucking the best brains up to their big holes in the ground and making everything more expensive for the rest of us. Then they plead poor and put out the begging hat when the government tries to get an extra cent off them.
Oh and how could we forget the complete stuff up that was the carbon tax? So full of loop holes you could drive an army of mine trucks through it and this from a country addicted to coal exports
33. Who did you miss?
Lots of folks at work left this year due to so many management stuff ups and three of them were really beautiful souls.
34. Who was the best new person you met?
Said goodbye to a lot of beautiful souls but cannot think of a single new one who took their place
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
Blessed are those who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed
Aside from several encounters with Dementors, most of the really awful days all had in common that they'd been the object of much anticipation and expectation. Most of the misery was due to sizzling hot or icky sticky weather which made original plans difficult or plain damned uncomfortable.
This year we had four weeks of hell where the day temperature was over 35 celsius but even worse, the nights never got below 20. Izzie was a blubbering brain dead zombie after just seven days of the sizzle.
On the other hand, some days which carried no expectations at all turned out to be the most wonderful and memorable of all the year.
There are also mundane aspects of the whole expectations thing
At the beginning of the year the Powers that be at the bus company decided to change the timetables which had been the same for so long that they could have been carved in stone. The scheduled time of Izzie’s bus to work in the morning at 6.40am was changed to 6.45am. Given that the bus is nearly always 5 minutes late and 10 on a bad day, this meant arriving at work only five minutes before starting time. Standing and waiting at the stop and wondering what how late the driver would be today just got way too stressful. Started using the broomstick a lot more. At least that was more reliable
But the interesting thing was the ridiculous over reaction to the change. Was literally pissed off for weeks on end and the horrid hot weather certainly did not help
But in September when they mucked around with the buses yet again - obviously their goblin bosses have nothing better to do, this time they moved it to 6.50 which literally meant it would not be possible to arrive on time taking that bus. Simply got the bus 30 minutes earlier or used the broomstick. Missing the extra 20 mins snooze but there’s never any worry about being late any more. Turned out that waiting and worrying the bugger would be late was very stressful indeed and cost more in extra energy than the twenty minutes extra sleep.
Also discovered just how true it is that all you really need to be happy is something to be enthusiastic about
And the other big one - never ever underestimate the power of a hairy scary deadline.
36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Glad it's all over"
1 What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Signed up for a book binding course in February and a felting course in June. The latter got cancelled so went and did the book binding course again. Had been such a zombie in February that it was pretty much wasted
Made ginger beer the old fashioned way but did not reckon with the evil powers of carbon dioxide. Was so looking forward to popping the bottle in the fridge after seven days brewing away only to find the contents all over the kitchen bench and a big chunk of the bottle missing. It was not a big bang just a big chunk of the bottle cracking and breaking off leaking all the precious bubbles. Got some plastic soft drink bottles since but not yet got around to making a second batch
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Didn't make any but progress on the 101 things in 1001 days has been on a serious go slow. The year started well and got lots of stuff done on the decluttering front but then a four week heat wave hit and the serpent turned into a veritable zombie for the next eight weeks and never really got back into doing stuff
Learned a few interesting tips for getting stuff done during Nanowrimo and may implement them during the new year. Stuff like no visits to Cyberia until completing the daily quota of 15 minutes decluttering or cleaning the house
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
A pretty little cat who adopted the Lair as her unofficial home. At first there were three kittens but now two have mysteriously disappeared
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Well, it's part of the job description when working in a nursing home. One was a really cool old Kiwi - a spring chicken by nursing home standards. She was much sicker than she appeared to be and everyone except her and her family was shocked and surprised when she died. She had made all the funeral arrangements and planned everything before moving into the nursing home and never let on to anyone that she was terminally ill.
It is so often the case that those who are really unwell seldom complain and the dying swan drama queens often have very little wrong with them and go on forever making life a misery for those who have anything to do with them.
Then there's others whose demise was nothing but a cause for celebration - two in particular come to mind. Not just for Izzie but a whole bunch of the other house elves. What a way to live your life that countless people (and not even particularly twisted malicious ones) are delighted when you die
Some one not close but much less famous than she should have been was the artist Leonora Carrington
Saw a certain picture at the touring Guggenheim exhibition and spent nearly the whole time drooling over its strange spooky surreal gorgeousness
This Leonora Carrington is truly a reincarnation of Heironymous Bosch with a hint of Marc Chagall and Arthur Boyd
5. What countries did you visit?
Bits of Cyberia. Much faster and more fun with the big bad Mac
Also one itsie bit of Oz - Bridgetown - which is as gorgeous as ever and a wonderful source for nanowrimo inspiration
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
The 2009 wish was for a decent boss with half a brain. It took until August 2009 for this wish to be fulfilled but she left in the middle of January this year. Now we are back to the usual bunch of losers and greedy goblins
As for next year - to get back the twinkle and finally get some serious gardening done
7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Stuff from the big bad world
The floods and fires here in Oz, the earthquakes in Christchurch and the nuclear tsunami in Japan
Daily mundane stuff
The departure of a very good boss within the first two weeks of the new year. This turned out to be the very bad omen that it seemed to be. Nothing like sadness and the loss of hope to make one a very delectable morsel for hungry dementors
The four week heat wave from hell in February/ March
Gave up on the garden and pretty much everything and became a slobbering miserable zombie for most of it
A visit from the serpent sister and her family
The two visits down south to the spooky little town of “Eden Vale” Always magical and always inspiring
The September street festival in Fremantle. Aside from the hordes of squealing kids, a quirky inspiring and amazing event
The Big Bad CHOGM event. Never seen the city centre looking so much like a ghost town. It was fun spotting the cops and spooks. They were everywhere
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Bugger all. This year was full of grand plans and lots of snoozes. Did get a big chunk paid off the house but did not actually do very much this year. Did keep plodding on despite an unusual amount of gloom and doom and visits from Dementors this year but actually achieved very little.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Letting the Dementors get the upper hand. Ended up neglecting the garden for pretty much most of the year since February
Procrastinating on the Goblin job front. Graduated in Feb 2004 and still not even properly started looking for a paying job counting beans. At this stage it looks extremely unlikely
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
The Izzie eyes have been not quite the same since that damned flight to Amsterdam. A noticeably decreased ability to decipher small print which is becoming increasingly more obvious and worse with each passing year
So many times been unable to find things which turned out to be exactly where they should have been. Was simply unable to see them first time around. The black purse and little black 2011 Scrooge Book were the biggest offenders
Realized that the beady little serpent eyes are past spotting the two elusive constellations of Aquarius and Pisces. These days our star gazing ambitions extend not much further than Orion and Scorpio.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Doing a good job of buying not much stuff but a soft spot has to go to “Alice in Wonderland” and one book bought on the ‘remainder shelf’ in the ‘Eden Vale” library. For a mere two dollars got a big fat green hard back cover of Stephen King’s “Nightmares and Dreamscapes”
12. Where did most of your money go?
The House goblins usually get 70% of the Izzie after tax income and this year was no exception. The froggie tenants departed in June. Kept the house repayments at the same level but by November it had gotten too hard so reduced it slightly.
13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
It was the lack of enthusiasm that was the distinguishing characteristic of this year. There were two heritage festivals to get excited about. One lived up to expectations, the other was good but the Izzie was crazy so it was basically wasted. This was especially frustrating as the Izzie had drooled for two months over the prospect of getting her nose inside the gorgeous green Old Treasury Building in the city centre.
Did get to go on the tour but it was a sticky muggy day and the Izzie was rather distracted and not at all in the magical enchanted mood worthy of such a mysterious abandoned building with such a fascinating past
Oh and the grand Nanowrimo adventure and a certain deck of tarot cards
14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
"Don't Fear the Reaper" Blue Oyster Cult, Same as last year but gave the Izzie sister and her family some CDs to play on their trip down south and all three of them loved that song. Their comments about the rest of the play list were most amusing indeed.
“What’s that song about mummy?” A Vietnam vet depressed about his war experiences (Goodbye Saigon)
Then mummy got to explain that the next one was about a boxer jailed for a murder he did not commit (Hurricane) followed by a tour of the countryside after it had been all nuked (A hard rain’s gonna fall)
The happiness just continued on with “The Wind that shakes the barley” (a folk song where a man commits suicide after his girl got killed by soldiers) and “Past Caring” with another litany of disasters.
Guess they never got as far as a certain Doors song. That would have been turned off rather fast before too many awkward questions got asked.
Yesss. Auntie Izzie is one happy little vegemite
15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
Happier or Sadder - about the same. Just emerged from a phase of serious gloomy doomy misery.
Older or wiser Both - we hope
Thinner or fatter? Fatter. Ask Petunia - that's the only bit of Izzie that she is capable of noticing
Richer or poorer? Richer - not only does the serpent have most of the stuff she needs but also most of what she wants. The rent from the two froggies in the house made a huge difference even if most of it simply got added to the house repayments. It's meant keeping the evil plastic in the black to the tune of $500 for most of the year and having an extra holiday even if it was only for two nights in the usual location down south
They are gone now since June so it was time for a bit more belt tightening
16. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading, writing, gardening and being happy
17. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Being cranky and neurotic. Being overenthusiastic when it comes to weed hunting - ie buying too many plants and then seeing rather more of the poor things dying than should be the case. Buying and planting anything but a cactus after October is just plain stupid
Done lots of “Buy Nothing Days” this year but still got too much stuff. Books are the serpent’s biggest weakness. But even just from op shops, library discard sales and garage sales, still got too many
18. How will you be spending Christmas?
At work from 3-9pm. Will probably be another disgusting muggy hot and humid day fit for nothing but snoozing and drinking whole swimming pools of water. Due to being back at work for 7am the next morning cannot even party after 9pm. Thank God next Christmas is a Tuesday so will have the whole afternoon for nibblies and bottlies
(Turned out to be a gorgeous day. Even work was good apart from the fact that the dirty worthless cheap and nasty goblins did not even leave a stale crumb as a thank you to all the staff who worked on Christmas Day. The expected thing is to provide Christmas Lunch and most employers also offer tokens of thanks in the form of movie tickets or gift vouchers. It was a quiet evening and there were no princesses or free loaders working that evening. It makes all the difference)
19. Did you fall in love in 2011?
What is love?
20. What was your favorite TV program?
The Gruen Planet - a ABC series about advertizing, public relations and spin.
21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Oh yesss. It’s part of the job description. A new toad of a boss, a petty clerk on a power trip and a certain person who just oozed bitter twisted hatred from the very first glimpse. There are few people that Izzie dislikes instantly - about a dozen over a life time come to mind and all have proved to be very nasty and dangerous specimens indeed. Soul sucking vampires or dementors masquerading in human form.
22. What was the best book you read?
Not been reading much at all this year. Did start reading “Alice in Wonderland” but got distracted. Such a wonderful voice. Lewis Carroll is one cool snark. Figuring that there’s a whole bunch of things going on there but not knowing just quite what, went and ordered “The Annotated Alice” for the inside gossip. It is a amazing just how much stuff from this book is now part of mainstream culture.
The other interesting books were the Tarot trilogy by Piers Anthony. Seriously weird and twisted and the guy sure knows his stuff. There were a few big chunks of boring stuff but the story on the whole was wicked and twisted and full of all sorts of delightful strange loops. Being a bit of a tarot freak seriously added to the enjoyment
23. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Adele - Some one like you - a real goose bumps spooky sort of song. Izzie normally has no time for slushy romance but this one is different. Only heard this twice this year and both times were on Radio National. Had no idea it had been a number one and a very big thing this year. The serpent has gotten so out of touch with the music scene lately. Nice to know that sometimes it is the cream and not just the turds that rise to the top
This song very much reminds Izzie of Joan Armatrading’s “The Weakness in me”
24. What did you want and get?
A big purple nano banner (or two if you count Camp Nano)
25. What did you want and not get?
The menopause and a decent boss
26. What was your favorite film of this year?
Did not see many films. But most likely “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” Lots of serpents, Snape and goblins. Even the appalling epilogue came across quite well. Certainly better than in the books.
27. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Went down south for a couple of nights and spent the time pottering around cafes, sniffing in gardens and generally lounging about
28. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Last year Izzie wrote
"A Boss Voodoo doll that really works when you stick pins in it or invent all sorts of evil torments" and guess what the two froggies gave the serpent for Christmas? !!
Will wait until January to try out the evilness.
As for this year - only time will tell
29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Fashion is an alien concept to this slobbish serpent. But we are rather partial to green hats.
30. What kept you sane?
Sane - Izzie sane? Never ever?
31. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Er. Izzie prefers politics - Hollywood for ugly people. But Julian Assange and The Mad Monk Tony Abbot provided the most entertainment of the year.
32. What political issue stirred you the most?
The ascendance of the ‘Dig it up and ship it cheap to China” brigade who are trashing the country, sucking the best brains up to their big holes in the ground and making everything more expensive for the rest of us. Then they plead poor and put out the begging hat when the government tries to get an extra cent off them.
Oh and how could we forget the complete stuff up that was the carbon tax? So full of loop holes you could drive an army of mine trucks through it and this from a country addicted to coal exports
33. Who did you miss?
Lots of folks at work left this year due to so many management stuff ups and three of them were really beautiful souls.
34. Who was the best new person you met?
Said goodbye to a lot of beautiful souls but cannot think of a single new one who took their place
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
Blessed are those who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed
Aside from several encounters with Dementors, most of the really awful days all had in common that they'd been the object of much anticipation and expectation. Most of the misery was due to sizzling hot or icky sticky weather which made original plans difficult or plain damned uncomfortable.
This year we had four weeks of hell where the day temperature was over 35 celsius but even worse, the nights never got below 20. Izzie was a blubbering brain dead zombie after just seven days of the sizzle.
On the other hand, some days which carried no expectations at all turned out to be the most wonderful and memorable of all the year.
There are also mundane aspects of the whole expectations thing
At the beginning of the year the Powers that be at the bus company decided to change the timetables which had been the same for so long that they could have been carved in stone. The scheduled time of Izzie’s bus to work in the morning at 6.40am was changed to 6.45am. Given that the bus is nearly always 5 minutes late and 10 on a bad day, this meant arriving at work only five minutes before starting time. Standing and waiting at the stop and wondering what how late the driver would be today just got way too stressful. Started using the broomstick a lot more. At least that was more reliable
But the interesting thing was the ridiculous over reaction to the change. Was literally pissed off for weeks on end and the horrid hot weather certainly did not help
But in September when they mucked around with the buses yet again - obviously their goblin bosses have nothing better to do, this time they moved it to 6.50 which literally meant it would not be possible to arrive on time taking that bus. Simply got the bus 30 minutes earlier or used the broomstick. Missing the extra 20 mins snooze but there’s never any worry about being late any more. Turned out that waiting and worrying the bugger would be late was very stressful indeed and cost more in extra energy than the twenty minutes extra sleep.
Also discovered just how true it is that all you really need to be happy is something to be enthusiastic about
And the other big one - never ever underestimate the power of a hairy scary deadline.
36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Glad it's all over"
