Monthly Archives: April 2008

Books

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu GuoI picked up this book in my local bookshop last Sunday. It was a toss up between this one and a Philippa Gregory novel Wild…something…

I loved the way this book started. “Sorry of my English.”

Zhuang is a Chinese language student who arrives in London to attend an English language school in order to get ahead in China.

The book begins in broken English: “Is unbelievable, I arriving London, ‘Heathlow Airport’. Every single name very difficult remembering, because just not ‘London Airport’ simple way like we simple way call ‘Beijing Airport’. Everything very confuse way here…”

Broken but charming, her language is quite poetic: “Immigration officer holding my passport behind his accounter, my heart hanging on high sky.”

Xiaolu Guo’s insights are also really interesting and sometimes funny: “People say ‘I’m going to go to the cinema…’ Why there two go for one sentence? Why not enough to say one go to go?”
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I felt inside her skin as she tried to make sense of the alien Western world and as she comments on the differences learning learning learning about her culture.

Now I suppose the title should have given it away… after all “for lovers” is a pretty big hint, but I was surprised at the amount of sex in this book. It’s not confronting, just… surprising. But it makes sense as part of the novel, for this innocent from China is not only discovering the Western World but also herself, her sexuality.

I really enjoyed this novel. It’s very cleverly written. Zhuang’s English gets better and better throughout the book. And as her language gets better, so does the depth of her insight.

My favourite expression is her description of the English sun while she’s in Portugal: “They got a real sun here in their sky, not like in England. English sun is a fake sun, a literature sun.”

Right on the money!

Extracurricular, Family, Film

Un-fayre

Swimmer statue in PerthWe’ve had 63 mm of rain in Perth today. The wettest start of April which more than doubles the previous record set in 1964. 90.6mm. W00t. Not good news for those promoting the second desalination plant in Binninup – always easier to get those things through when the dam levels are low, and not good news for those planning today’s Medieval Fayre.

Today I woke up at about 10am… I heard the sports guys on the radio going on about the rain and how it would probably clear by the afternoon in time for the clash between the Dockers and the Eagles and I rolled over and congratulated myself for taking the washing off the line.

I got up briefly. Made myself a coffee and crumpet and slothed back to bed and read a bit more of my (unexpectedly racy) novel.

A girlfried called and we chatted for awhile…

And as we were chatting, there was a knocking at my door…

Another friend had dropped by. I LOVE the drop in, although it was slightly inconvenient as I was as I say, on the phone and in my pjs. I made plans with my friend on the phone to catch up tomorrow, pulled on some jeans and went to see my visitor.

I had a lovely morning. We ended up going to Spotlight where I’m considering buying a sewing machine. Yes yes I know I’m not the world’s most obvious dressmaker and lets face it – do I really have the time – but oh those machines… I just love them. The fancy stitches which I’d never use, the LED lights, the bobbin racks and pull out accessories drawer.

I said to my friend… “Hmmm the NS10 only has a single needle. Do you really need the twin needle option?”
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She said yes.

Sigh.

I got home eventually and as I logged online remembered that it was the day of the Medieval Fayre. Hey nonny nonny and all that stuff. Having watched Gladiator (isn’t that a surprisingly good movie?) the night before I was even ready to watch a couple of geeks in armour throwing a sword around. I was.

Pulling the kids in the car we headed off to the city. “Isn’t this exciting!” I enthused as we passed the statue in the river, today sporting a towel and beach spade… “Something new to do together!”

Yes, full of the joys of spring we drove until reaching Supreme Court gardens where we saw the remnants of the fayre packed up. Stacks of white plastic chairs (oh so medieval!). The odd scattered tent. Puddles.

It was only 3.15 and the Fayre was supposed to finish at 5pm. It was so unfayre!

We went to see The Spiderwick Chronicles instead. Which was fayrely entertaining movie.

Dippity, Health, Hugamuga, Introspection

How long should it take to name a child?

There is a high profile person in Perth who has recently become the father to a healthy baby girl (as opposed to a fully grown one). She is beautiful and the mother is by all accounts a very lovely and organised person.

The baby was born on the 14th March and to date the babe is not named.

Now there are probably very good reasons for that. Who knows what is going on with them.

But I find it hard to imagine going three weeks without naming my babes. I think I took one look at my babes as they were laid on my chest and said “Welcome to the world little Hugamuga/Dippity”, barely seconds old.

Newborn Son

With Hugamuga we’d had a tulmultuous time… first births often are. I’d gone into labour two days before and after getting to 8cm and having my waters broken in the home birth centre at the hospital it was decided to transfer to the hospital proper – so I could have an epidural and a rest.

Things didn’t proceed well – the baby was posterior and presenting the widest part of his head – and I was transferred from the labour ward to theatre, prepped for an emergency caeser and they tried first to suction him out… yep, I got the cut.

I was pretty high on drugs at this point but what I remember is that the doctor was pulling on the suction thingy and the bed started going with it. The brakes weren’t on!

Then we heard a loud sucky sound and we thought – omg! Here he/she comes! Then there was a loud theatrical “pop” and the suction cap fell off and the doctor went flying.

The monitoring equipment went wild and it was decided they couldn’t wait for a caeser – they just had to rip him out. The student midwives observing at the back of the room visibly winced as the forceps went in and Hugamuga came out. (that’s not a good sign)

He scored 4 on his first apgar, and 8 on his second. He looked like a little blue frog with a squashed nose and bruises on his head both where the suction cup had been and by his ears – like sideburns – where the forceps were clamped. But he was okay. Safe. Yes a rocky landing but the plane didn’t crash. I was lucky.
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Meanwhile at the other end of the bed the doctor was busy practicing his needlepoint. Third degree tear. 40 stitches. Please remember I’m still very high on drugs. “So you won’t be able to have sex for two months and you’ll need to take laxitives regularly for 6…” sew sew sew… “Oh,” says I, “So I guess anal sex is out of the question?” The midwives glare at Groover. I was joking! I think I’m hysterically funny. “Don’t distract the doctor darling”, says Groover, “you need him to concentrate at the moment…”

But I digress what were we talking about again???

That’s right. Names.

I don’t think I’m especially well organised but I did have the name thing organised. We’d agreed on both a boys and a girls name for Hugamuga… he would have been Madeleine if a girl.

Newborn Girl

And for Dippity we had a deal, Groover got to name the baby if a boy – Declan (hmmm not so much) – and I got to name her if she was a girl, which happily, she was. But again no delay.

So (finally) here’s my question. Did it take you a while to name your babies?

And if so, why?

Religious reasons perhaps? You’re the Crown Prince of Denmark maybe? You had the baby unexpectedly early?

I’d love to know your story…

Bridge, Extracurricular, Youtube

How to Riffle Shuffle

Babtamore (Trish) asks “What is rifle shuffle?” Well I don’t like to take a shot-gun approach to my answers (hehe) so I’ve made you all a little video on how to riffle shuffle.

In fact this is a riffle shuffle with a Cascade Bridge Flourish. Sounds fancy eh?
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Here’s some more tutorials…

And yes… that’s Groover at the end. 🙂

Introspection

The importance of a best friend

The other day at work I mentioned a friend in a conversation and my colleague turned to me and asked “Is she your best friend?”

It stopped me in my tracks.

I’ve been thinking a lot about best friends lately and how important – to 10-year-olds at least – it is to have a best friend.

I met my best friend at school at the age of 10. In years 6&7 we were inseparable. I’d go over to her house 2-3 times a week, we had sleepovers, secretly liked the same boys, played hopscotch, trampolining, elastics, and board games endlessly. We were both born in Canada. Her family Canadian, my family Australian (working abroad at the time). I went to Wave Rock with her family. She came to Rotto with mine.

She taught me how to riffle shuffle – a skill I enjoy to this day. I don’t think I taught her anything. Her dad would wake us up in the morning singing lougly:

Good morning to you
Good morning to you
Whatever the weather
We’ll face it together
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a beautiful day!

Best Friends circa 1979

Note the similar fashion style, even similar hair! We’d have been around 12.

I remember on the way home, her dad stopped on the side of the road. A fox had been killed. I don’t know why he stopped – maybe to get the foxtail. He turned the dead animal over and I can still see to this day the teeming maggots, green and maroon.

Today we don’t see each other. We grew apart when she moved schools in Year 9 but kept in touch. She has moved to Vancouver with her husband and two boys. Maybe she reads this blog. I hope so.

If you’re reading girlfriend: Thank you for being a great best friend!

Blogging, Wordpress

WordPress 2.5: don’t be scared

4 Comments

There has been quite a lot of talk on forums and in blogs about 2.5 and for those of you who are not on WordPress it must be getting a bit boring – and people can we move on please! – This, I promise will be my last post on it. Two of two.

So I upgraded last night and this is the first post completely using the new format.

Screenshot of my post as it is being written< /p>

And this view of the screenshot is the first image I’ve uploaded using the new interface which I might say is bloody marvellous with options to do captions and descriptions and to align it in the centre if you wish! (although my theme means that I have to centre manually)

As you can see I’m quite taken with 2.5. As are others.

Apart from the image and gallery functions (untested yet), I like the new layout. I like the webstats on the dashboard, I like the automatic upgrade of the plugins – man that saves some time – I’m lukewarm about the widgets interface – now you have to choose which sidebar you’re looking at – I quite liked having all the sidebars displayed – but apart from that I’m really happy.

Of course there are some who aren’t enjoying the new interface but you can’t please everyone I guess.

To those who say – don’t fix what ain’t broke – I say bah humbug! How boring would life be if we stood still. But then I’m a girl who likes change (as my many theme changes will attest).

But do your homework. Maybe you’d like to wait a little longer. Make sure all the bugs are discovered. Fair enough. You don’t have to upgrade.

If you do want to – the instructions on WordPress worked really well for me.

Here’s what I did:

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  1. Downloaded the new files and extracted them into a folder I could find again.
  2. Disabled plugins
  3. Deleted my wp-includes folder in my FTP program (I use Smart FTP). This took a little while.
  4. Uploaded the new wp-includes folder. Again this took some time.
  5. Deleted my wp-admin folder.
  6. Uploaded the new wp-admin folder
  7. Copied across and overwrote all the files in the root WordPress directory making sure my wp-config file was not overwritten.
  8. Copied across and overwrote the index.php file in wp-content
  9. Opened a browser and went to wp-admin/install.php and followed the prompts
  10. Went to the plug-in section and activated the plug-ins updating as I went

Piece of the preverbial.

And if the Automatic Upgrade Plug-in works for you – even easier.

Update: More opinions (including mine… again)

Okay enough Geek Speak… normal blogging will resume shortly…

But before I go – and if you’re still reading – you’ll appreciate this little gem.