Daily Prompt – Getting Seasonal

Do you miss the holiday season when it’s months away? When you’re in the midst of holiday madness, do you enjoy it, or can’t wait for it to be over?

This recent holiday season, I really couldn’t be bothered. I was so completely disorganised, it was embarrassing.

18 Nov – Kindness of Strangers

Tell us about one time that you benefitted from the kindness of strangers.

It was several years ago when I was working in legal recruitment.

Daily Prompt – Big Day Ahead

It’s the night before an important event: a big exam, a major presentation, your wedding. How do you calm your nerves in preparation for the big day?

Wedding…? HA! Well, we can immediately cross that one off the list…!

Daily Prompt – Freudian Flips

Do you remember a recent dream you had? Or an older one that stayed vivid in your mind? Today, you’re your own Freud: Tell us the dream, then interpret it for us! Feel free to be as serious or humorous as you see fit, or to invent a dream if you can’t remember a real one.

So the actual dream that first came to mind is something that I’ve previously written about…

Post #300

Time to take a moment and give myself a little pat on the back, as this is the 300th post that I’ve written!

I can’t believe that I’ve managed to make it to 300 posts already. I remember when I first started this venture, the thought of even writing 100 posts seemed to be quite daunting, and then all of a sudden, I passed that, and was on my way to 150.

Granted, I’m writing this knowing that I still have a backlog of about seven or eight posts that I still need to complete in order to bring myself up to date, but at least then, I’ll be on my way toward my 400th post… even THAT seems to be quite a way off.

…but I know that I’d love to just spend my days writing and writing. I’m looking forward to ‘catching up’ so then whenever I come across a prompt that inspires my creativity, I can completely throw myself behind that post and just write and write and write, instead of stressing about catching up all the time, or having to spend an entire week smashing out 20+ posts.

…who’s stupid idea was it to take on two posts per day… oh right, mine.

 

Daily Prompt: Isn’t Your Face Red

When was the last time you were embarrassed? How do you react to embarrassment? 

I usually do stuff that I will end up getting embarrassed over quite a lot… Well, embarrassed if people actually know what I did / said etc.

Funnily enough, I am generally quite self-deprecating because I’m usually trying to tell a funny story, or make somebody laugh etc, so I find that at times I’ll end up telling an embarrassing story. However, in saying that, I do have my moments when I get highly embarrassed about things, especially if it’s something that’s brought up, that I wanted to remain private. Those kind of things usually catch me right off guard, and more often than not, I just want the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

And, of course, when I’m having these moments, everybody else around me is like,

The last time I embarrassed myself was during a recent trip overseas. Well, it wasn’t what I did that was necessarily embarrassing, but moreso the fact that I actually told other people about that was embarrassing… and so now I’m going to share that story with you…

So here I am overseas on this work trip. I had a free couple of hours, so I thought to myself ‘I think that I might go get a massage. It’s long overdue and I’m feeling quite tight and sore from all the exercise I’ve done in the last couple of days’. 

So I figure seeing as how I’ve seen a number of small asian-operated massage places around town, I’ll try one that looks the cleanest and get like a 90min massage to really work on getting all those knots out. So I go to one that I had set my sights on previously.

…please come back in 30 mins.

Bitch, I don’t have 30 mins.

So I go to another place that I saw the other day… except this one has two locations in the same complex, so this should be fine.

Please come back in 30 mins.

Oh come on!!

So I head to the other location… only to find there’s actually nobody there.

DAMN IT!!

Time to find another place… I know I saw another one around here somewhere… Meanwhile, I’m checking the time, and by this stage, I’ll be lucky if I’m able to get an hour in. I find another place (HOORAY!!) who then asks me to come back in 15-20mins… (SERIOUSLY?!?!)

So now, I’m thinking that I’m not even going to have time to get a massage at all before I have to be back at the gym for a class at 6pm. By this stage it’s 4:40pm and I’ll still need to  go back to the hotel, change, and then race to the gym in order to make my class.

I’m already starting to feel defeated and thinking I should just go to the hotel when I see a sign for massage in some arcade. By this stage, frankly, I don’t care where it is, I just want a massage.

I walk up to the sign outside the door and checking their services and times and I hear this ‘HERRO!… You rike a massage today? How you feel?’

‘Oh, Hi… yes, I was wondering if I could get my lower back and my flutes done for 30 minutes?’

And he looked at me completely puzzled. So in true language-barrier-charades style, I pointed to what I wanted to massage, and he finally understood what I was saying. He lead me inside and took me into this room with a couple of massage tables and asks me to strip down to my briefs.

I was already beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable as it was in full view of everybody else in the main room having head / neck / feet massages, but he quickly pulled a curtain across to allow me some privacy.

The massage was okay. The pressure was good, but could’ve been better. I already had asked him twice to increase the pressure, and the poor guy couldn’t handle it, I think he was getting more of a workout from it. Every now and then he’d find a different spot and I’d make a small groan sound from the pain and he’d always reply with something like ‘Ahh yes, painful because so tight… so, so, so tigh. You need regurar massage!’

So he attacks one side of my back, then the tops of both sides of my glutes… but not the other side of my back. WHen he finished I questioned him about it, and he said that I only asked for one side.

Seriously, who goes in and asks for a lower-back massage, but just on one side??

Anyway. So I’m starting to stress out about the time and then all of a sudden the old Chinese woman who works there is talking to the guy, then she comes over to me, barks something at me in Chinese, grabs my arm and drags me back to the table.

She continues to talk to me in Chinese, and I keep looking at the guy for some kind of translation, and he’s not saying anything, so I have to remind him I DON’T SPEAK CHINESE, and he just looks at me as though I’ve just babbled something incoherently.

So I look at this old lady, who looks like she’s about 80, and slowly tell her I. DON’T. SPEAK. CHINESE!! and so she makes out a few audible words and then starts to talk to the guy, who then finally begins to translate.

Turns out she wants to give me some free Chinese medicine… so she gets me to lay back down on the table, pokes around on my back and then shows me a small vile of white liquid. She keeps talking to me in Chinese, asking me all kinds of questions, to which I just don’t answer because I’ve know idea what she’s saying.

She sprinkles some of the white liquid on my lower back and then covers it with a length of cling-film. She prompts me to sit up and the guy tells me that she’s just put some medicine on my back, and I might end up with a small warming sensation. I should keep it on for forty-minutes.

Bitch, I don’t have 40mins. I have to GO!!

Then as I’m starting to put my top back on, I start to feel this warming sensation… which begins to get more and more intense. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, it feels like my back is on FIRE. Searing white-hot fire. It’s like Tiger Balm but the real shit that you can’t buy in Australia, you have to buy it in Thailand or something…

So whilst I’m sitting there thinking that I’m getting third-degree burns, she grabs my arm and takes me back into the main room and pushes me down into a chair…

…to give me a quick head / neck / shoulder massage… Oh, and to contort my body into position they’re not designed to be twisted into!! Ten minutes later, I’m paying my money, stressing out that I’m now going to be late for my class.

Then I’m outta there and power-walking down the main street to the hotel. I’m sending Hulk a string of messages recapping what just happened, and asking him to get some things ready for me… and getting no reply. He’s probably asleep. DAMN IT!!

Then all of a sudden I start feeling hot and sweaty. Where’s one of the primary places people sweat?? Oh that’s right, their lower back! And who’s just had the white-hot liquid of fire spread all over their back?? Yeah… so the burning sensation of fire is starting to rapidly intensify, and then I can feel it beginning to make it’s way even further down my back.

Suddenly, It’s between the top of my butt cheeks. I’ve developed crack sweat. Which, any other time is bad enough. However, crack sweat that’s coming from the white-hot elixir of fire, is a whooooole other story.

Have you ever tried to put something like Tiger Balm, or Deep Heat onto your anus? No? Oh, right, BECAUSE IT HAS NO RIGHT TO EVER BE IN OR NEAR THAT AREA, EVER!! Well, I wasn’t that fortunate, and now my arse, literally, felt like it was on fire. Trying to keep up my pace back to the hotel whilst I feel like there is fire in the rear of my jocks is probably one of the worst experiences ever (without actually causing an injury).

Still haven’t heard back from Hulk, and I’ve got 15mins to get upstairs, change and get to the gym by 6pm.

I race upstairs and sure enough, Hulk is fast asleep. GOD DAMN IT!! Then I launch into whirlwind mode… Literally, tearing around the hotel room packing a pack, filling drink bottles, prepping a protein shake and then I just freeze. I can’t take it anymore. I grab a towel, wet it, get completely naked and rip off the cling film from my back and attempt to wipe off the fire-liquid as much as I can.

Here’s a tip… it actually makes it worse!!

But I didn’t have time to worry about it. Nothing was going to make me miss this class. NOTHING!!

So I get my stuff together and race downstairs and off to the gym… only to get there and find out that the class before mine is running 45mins late.

…what?

After all that.

After all that stressing out, I have so much time up my sleeve. I should’ve gone to have a shower whilst I waited, but I didn’t take a towel with me. So instead I had to sit there and wait, whilst my arse was on fire.

It was excruciating, but then when my class started, I completely stopped thinking about it. I was too in the moment to think about it or even care.

 

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Jan 27: Time Constraints

What puts more pressure on you: time constraints or achieving perfection?

Short answer:  Both.

Try aiming for perfection whilst having time constraints. It’s not exactly the easiest to achieve. Moreso when you’re constantly being interrupted. Even worse still is when you find yourself completely in ‘the zone’.

If I had to pick one, I’d probably say time constraints. I tend to be quite thorough with my work, and present my work well in terms of layout and design, but my problem is managing to do that in a timely fashion. I could have a couple of weeks up my sleeve to complete something, and that’s where the problem begins.

In the beginning I’m always of the mindset that I’ve got heaps of time, and it’s not a really complicated job, it might take me a day or so max, so I don’t need to really think about it just yet.

…WRONG!!

What happens after that is I become a lot more aware of the days passing me by, but in my head I still see myself having heaps of time up my sleeve, and more often than not, it’s usually the day before, or worse, the day it’s due and then I realise I’ve left it until literally the last minute and go into complete meltdown mode and stress out like crazy in order for it to get done.

I will actually get it done, but don’t think about even coming anywhere near me when I get into that mode, because I’ll be ready to rip somebody’s head off.

Time management, not my strongest, and clearly something that needs to be worked on.

NaBloPoMo Pressure – January

So I’m sitting here (at work, mind you), looking at my list of posts marked DRAFT. There’s 8 of them sitting there. Taunting me. Pressuring me. And I’m feeling quite agitated.

Is that even the right description?!

Either way, tomorrow I’m heading off overseas, and I’ve already started to create the draft posts that I will need to write as part of my NaBloPoMo challenge. Plus there’s the Daily Prompt ones as well, and by my calculations, by the time I get back from my trip next Monday, I will need to have completed 16 posts over the next 5 days.

See, you’re sitting there thinking ‘um, that’s actually really easy, stop complaining!’.

Well, I’ve got news for you. It’s actually not that easy. I started this entire daily writing challenge thinking this was so incredibly simple and easy to do, and that was with the NaBloPoMo challenge in November 2013. I immediately realised that I could almost write an entire month’s worth of posts over the course of a weekend (which I didn’t actually do), but I then thought I’d really challenge myself and take on the Daily Prompt challenge as well.

So, it’s been a bit of a struggle sometimes to get a two posts done per day, because of something called life. Life happens. Work, family, work, social, work, gym, gym, family, gym, family, work, social, gym, work etc etc etc etc. And then after a couple of days I’ve suddenly found myself with a backlog of 8 posts just to bring myself up to date, and then there’s the upcoming 8 posts that need to be written. And all this is somehow supposed to happen miraculously whilst I’m overseas on a work trip.

Jan’s NaBloPoMo theme is pressure, and sweet baby cheeses am I feeling the pressure now.

I wanted to try and smash at least two out yesterday between job number 1 and job number 2, but ended up with family commitments in between. PLUS on top of that I’ve been having very little sleep the last few nights because it’s been ridiculously hot here. It was 42C yesterday (that’s 107.6F for everybody else) and it’s been pretty hot like that for a few days now. So I’ve been having very little sleep, but in saying that, going to bed at 1:30 – 2:00am the last couple of nights doesn’t help either.

So here I am, sitting at my desk feeling like a bit of a zombie.

I am really struggling to focus and do my work, and I find that I’m just making so many mistakes. I was just in the process of writing a message to somebody overseas, and without realising I had picked up the phone with the intention of calling them, despite the fact that I don’t actually know their number overseas. I’m just doing really stupid things.

I just want to go to bed.

Tonight, when I finish my other job, I’ll get home about 9:30 – 10pm, then at some point have dinner and pack my suitcase before going to bed. I’ll then have a 4:00am wake up call so I can haul ass to the airport at 5:30 to check in before my flight @ 8am.

*groan*

I’m already exhausted, and thinking about that, just makes it worse. I need a holiday just so I can recover!!

Jan 2: Pressure = Obligation

What are you currently feeling pressure to do that you don’t particularly enjoy?

Well, I’m currently on holidays, so I’m not actually feeling much pressure to do anything. I really want to get my lazy arse up to date with all my blog posts – and I must say, yesterday I managed to smash out a whopping 16 blog posts one after the other… That was something that I felt a lot of pressure to achieve, and I really wanted to have it all done before New Years, but I just didn’t get a chance to do so.

But now that I’m home alone (Hulk is back @ work), it’s now 12:10pm, I’m still in my PJ’s on the couch with my laptop, listening to some music by Medina (Check her out on iTunes, she’s got a few really catchy tracks!)

One thing I’m feeling pressure to do is to be more social. It started with New Years Eve. I had no intentions of going out whatsoever because I couldn’t stand the thought of being squished into a nightclub, sweating my hole out, surrounded by stinky drunk disgusting gays and the aroma of smoke, alcohol and b.o. NO THANK YOU.

However, Hulk had made the decision that we were going out much to my dislike. The reality was that it wasn’t as packed as I had anticipated, which was good, and we were out with some great people, which made the night much more bearable. So I ended up enjoying myself…

My problem is that, generally I just don’t like people that much. There’s only a select few of people that I know that I could quite happily spend hours with, without wanting to slowly bleach my retinas, or gouge my eyes out with a piece of rusty tin.

But that’s just a constant in my life. I dislike people in general, which is kinda bad, because it just makes me want to interact with people less and less. I really should change that.

However, given that I’m now getting over the festive season, I do have one underlying pressure I’m placing on myself… to lose weight. Ugh.

Seeing as how for the last two weeks of the year, all I’d done is eat myself stupid… the pinnacle being Christmas Day / Boxing Day, as well as far too much chocolate, I have now got a healthy bouncy little food baby… and I’d like to get rid of it.

However, in order to do so, it means I have to do excercise… but the type of exercise that I absolutely loathe… weights. And I don’t lift weights. I can’t think of anything more boring… and I feel so incredibly self conscious about doing weights in a gym, so the whole thing becomes a complete nightmare.

See… this is what I basically anticipate happening. I know that it won’t because I physically wouldn’t be able to lift anything more than my 5kg baby weights… but it’s the only image I get in my head. That, and the constant intimidation of being surrounded by all these fit muscly guys all watching me and judging me. Fuck that. It stresses me out too much… and how do I deal with stress?? Eat. And what do I have a table full of, waiting to be eaten? Chocolates. And thus, the vicious cycle begins.

I recently stepped out of my comfort zone to try a fitness class I’ve never done before, and it nearly bloody killed me… and I was sore for days afterwards. If anything, I might do that again… start off with something achievable…

 

Dec 27: Favourite Week of the Year

Which do you enjoy more: the last week of the year, or the first week of the year?

Oh without a doubt, it’s the first week of the year. Everything feels fresh and new. Here in ‘Straya, it’s our Summer, so the weather is usually hot and sunny. Well, perhaps unless you live in Melbourne.

It’s actually New Years Day and I’m in the process of catching up on some posts from the previous week, as I haven’t had an opportunity to write anything – I know, I know, poor form for a post-a-day challenge, but I’m determined to finish them all, dammit!!

So today instead of warm and sunny, it’s overcast and raining. Awesome.

But apart from the weather, the first week is usually pretty great. It’s usually hot and sunny. I’m also on holidays from both my jobs so I’ve got nothing but time on my hands: Sleep and PS3 come at me!!

The last week of the year pales by comparison – if it’s the last working week, it’s all about finishing up stuff at work; stressing about Christmas; juggling countless christmas parties and dinners and lunches and making sure that you have enough gifts for people etc etc etc. If it’s the actual last week of the year then it’s all about Christmas Day / Boxing Day – Have I got enough food? What time is lunch? What do I wear? Who’s going to be there? Who’s coming later? What am I taking? What do I have to make? Who are we picking up on the way there / dropping off on the way home? And then as soon as that’s over, it’s all about New Years: Where are we going? What are we doing? Do we go out? Do we go to so-and-so’s BBQ? What’s everybody else doing? Who’s having a party? Can I be bothered? What am I going to wear? Do I need to go shopping?

It’s just too much drama.