Diagnosis Health

Hello cats and kittens!

Last week I had the pleasure of being interviewed about my PhD research for a kooky little health science web show called Diagnosis Health. Check me out on YouTube!!

Let the Awesomeness Begin!

Do you know what today is cats and kittens? Today is the start of my favourite season in Melbourne: the Suzuki Night Market! This market brings together pretty much all of Melbourne's funkiest market vendors, along with really awesome food and drink* right outside my office every Wednesday evening from now until the beginning of March. This was one of the first things I discovered about Melbourne when I moved here in Feb '08. Unfortunately, I discovered it at the end of the market season and had to wait 8 months before I could really experience the full awesomeness of the Night Market. My tradition is to go every Wednesday. This usually lasts until after Christmas, when my fanatical obsession suddenly seems to die away, along with the funds in my bank account.

I'm extra excited about this year's Night Market because of all the weight I've lost this year. My shopping options should be greatly increased! Though after putting on 1kg I've said I can't buy any new clothes until I lose 2kg, and as this has not yet happened, tonight I will be looking with my eyes, not my wallet.

But given that most of my clothes are now too big for me, I am looking forward to stocking up on some funky summer threads over the coming months, and this has gotten my thinking...

Joni's Top Ten Style Tips #6: Experiment!

As the years have gone by, I've developed a certain way of dressing and quite frankly sometimes I bore myself. My funkier outfits, the ones that get me noticed, are not what I wear on a day-to-day basis, mostly because I cannot be bothered. But now that I am faced with having to slowly clear out all my old clothes and get new ones, I'm starting to give more thought to how I want to dress. Also, being on a budget means that I'm not just wandering into a store and picking up random things and seeing which ones stand the test of time anymore. Gone are the days of unjustified clothes shopping!

So knowing how I like to dress and what I've already got in my wardrobe, my mission as I seek out new additions is to try new things. I have a tendency to stick to what I know is practical instead of branching out and experimenting. I want to create a wardrobe that has a lot more versatility and creativity in it.

I also want to stop hording accessories that I never use! I went through this phase of being really into scarfs, and I amassed heaps of them. But at some point I stopped wearing them (though it took me awhile to catch up on the stop buying them front). I do like my scarfs, and many of them signal emotional connections to a certain time in my life. But I rarely wear them. Is that a side of me that I have moved on from? Or is it time for a scarf revival? This is one of the things I intent to experiment with and find out! The same applies to my collection of broaches, bangles, earrings and necklaces. So watch out for some retro revivals from the hidden depths of my accessory collections as I engage in some summer wardrobe experimentation!
*I can't personally vouch for the drink, aside from the Lemonade Stand, which was a massive let down...and what's up with the ban on photography?! What on earth makes them so special? Apparently the sangria is really great though.

Socks Code of Conduct

OK, so I know that this is weird and pedantic and all that, BUT! I have a real issue with socks. I don't know why, but I do. And it's not just one of those crazy quirks that I can apply to myself and not judge others by the same standards. Oooh no! I judge people by their socks. I know it's stupid, but when someone tells me they willfully break my sock rules, I reassess why this person is in my life.

I'm writing about this today because I have quite accidentally broken one of my sock rules, and I didn't realize it until it was much too late! I did not mean to leave the house in the socks I am wearing, and now that I have realized this, I will be self conscious for the rest of the day.

So what, exactly, are my sock hang-ups? Well!

1. Mismatching socks - I get distressed if I'm wearing two mismatched black socks, I cannot imagine how someone could go through life wearing completely different coloured socks.
2. Dirty socks - Some things can be worn more than once before they need a wash, but not socks. I would rather go without socks than have to re-wear a dirty pair. Though in a similar pinch, I will re-wear dirty underwear.
3. Toe socks - This is just a whole world of wrong and I don't know how to deal with people who wear these. Also, toe rings. There is never an acceptable time to wear toe rings.

OK, so it might just be those 3, but they do truly repulse me. Honestly, I prefer to go without socks, but that is not always the weather appropriate option.

My breech of conduct today has to do with Rule #2. You see, it's been getting chilly at night and my body has a tendancy to stop supplying my toes with any blood when I'm cold, resulting in my having blue toes during winter. I have realized that this can be prevented if I wear socks to bed (I used to have a rule expressly forbidding this, but needs must I dropped it). Normally I sleep in really thick wool socks that I would not be able to wear a shoe over, and hence, never leave the house in my bedtime socks. But lately I've been using a pair of just regular wool socks, which I do wear in my shoes during winter. And this morning, I forgot to change my socks. Now my feet are overly warm and I feel like an embarassment to society.

In un-sock related news... I've got my new computer. It probably would be quite exciting, except I reached my download limit on my internet at the same time, so I haven't actually been able to properly set up my new computer. Also, I didn't want to have to buy a new computer, so I wasn't super thrilled about it anyways. It's a netbook, which is another reason I'm not super thrilled. But, it is super light and tiny, and so it will be handy for working on the go. I'm sure I'll come around to it in time.

Little Fishies

It's been awhile since I updated my blog, which isn't intentional. I've just been busy and my internet at home is slow and painful to use. I'm not sure if the problem is my internet connection, my apartment building, or my computer. I'm hoping it's my computer because a shiny new one is on it's way into my life. I'm so excited about being able to see my computer screen again! I've completely forgotten what that's like.

The past few weeks have been muffin, cake, chips and ice cream heavy, and I have felt the effects of this. My slow but steady weight loss did a 180 and the numbers on the scale went up instead of down. While I would like to live a life where going up 1kg is not a big deal, I am still a long ways from my goal weight and going up 1kg is a sign that I've gone off track.

So it's been out with the junk food and into the pool for me. No more of this "oh, it's raining, I don't wanna go to yoga" business either! Discipline is an admirable thing to have in ones life and I must return to my idol, Lady Gaga, for inspiration in getting back on track. (Also, Janelle Monae, why on earth has my brother not told me about her?!) Lady Cop and I have entered into a gentle woman's accord to achieve our various fitness goals, and I have every intention of schooling her ass.

My aim is to lose 18kg in 7 months. This year I have lost at least 10kg, and that was only by moderately increasing my exercise. I have been making subtle changes to my diet more recently, and now I will need to be much more disciplined about what I eat. Also, I need to up my time at the pool from 3-4 times a week to 4-5 times a week. And I need to push myself harder at the pool.

At the moment, I swim 50 laps or 1.5km and I can do this in 42-43 minutes. Currently, I am trying to get my time down to 40 minutes. This is proving to be more challenging than I initially anticipated. It is requiring me to really build up my muscles. Which brings me to my diet...

After 6.5 years of dedicated vegetarianism, I have decided to start eating fish. I know, I know! It is shocking. I've only told a couple people at my office about this, as vegetarianism is pretty much the norm here. Today at lunch when I 'came out', one colleague said "...are you still queer?" (Yes, obviously! I haven't gone completely mad!)

I didn't eat fish before becoming a vegetarian, so this is no small decision. I was not getting enough protein to build up and maintain my muscles so a change of diet was required. Ultimately, my decision to turn to vegetarianism was for health reasons, and taking stock of my current situation, eating fish was the healithiest option to increasing my protein and maintaining a balanced diet. I felt sad and kinda sick the first time I ate it, but, then I had to admit to myself that it was really quite tasty.

Actually, if I can be really naughty, I'm even more excited about Christmas in Hawaii now. All those trips to the Indian Ocean when I said no the what looked like the most amazingly delicious fish dishes... Like hell I'm gonna sit on an island in the middle of the Pacific and turn down some Humuhumunukunukuapuaa now!

Tales of an Evolving City

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was going to check out a session at the Australian Travel Writers Festival. That session was on Saturday. I almost didn't go to it. The forecast called for a torrential downpour and I was not relishing the idea of going all the way into the city just for an hour talk, especially after a night of drinking and not a lot of sleeping. But I got myself some coffee and threw on some clothes and made plans to meet up with my flatmate for lunch after the session, and that took the sting off making the trip into the city.

I'm really glad I did end up going! It was quite an interesting talk that got my slightly beer soaked brain juices flowing. The session was on the psychogeography of Melbourne and about if cities have personalities. Melbourne's got personality coming out the wazoo, so I expected the talk to be more focused on how Melbourne's rather distinctive personality came into being. Instead, the talk was more about how we develop a sense of place and come to see space as holding parts of our personal history.

I found this particular personal interest and relevance because since moving to Melbourne, I have been very aware of how my sense of the space of the city has evolved and changed as my sense of place in the city has become more established.

Having done a fair bit of travelling before I moved here, I was well aware of the fact that when I initially arrive in a city everything looks shiny and exciting, but as I spend more time in that city, my perceptions of the city change. When I lived in Amsterdam, I had quite a hard time adjusting to the city and never was able to feel at home there. As I was moving to Melbourne for a much longer period of time, I was determined not to make the same mistakes I made with Amsterdam. I had very few expectations of Melbourne before I arrived. I'd heard that the shopping and food were good, and was pleased by this, but that was all. When I arrived here, I paid attention to how I felt about the city: what I noticed, what interested me, what I liked, what I didn't like. Doing that has allowed me to watch my feelings about Melbourne grow and change as I've become more integrated into the city.

Before I arrived in Melbourne, I spent a lot of time looking at maps of the CBD (downtown) so that when I did get here I was able to make my way around the city with relative ease. I didn't feel anxious about getting lost because I had memorised the map. I find it very freeing to know where I am in a city, so having this map in my head really put me at ease. Now that I've got an iPhone, being able to look up an address or my own location at a moment's notice has been invaluable in developing my sense of place in Melbourne.

The first year I was here, when I would drive with someone somewhere, I often felt anxious because I didn't know the roads. I didn't know what we would encounter from point A to B, even if I was familiar with points A and B, because I get around by walking and public transport. I have now come to know the city well enough that I can almost always locate myself on my inner map of Melbourne. And the more I am able to do that, the more at peace I feel.

My perception of Melbourne has shifted and changed in the nearly 3 years I've lived here. Aside from just knowing the city better, I have developed much more of a history with it. Now when I walk, drive, tram, or train my way through the city, I can point out places of personal relevance to me. Places I've lived, share houses I've looked at, restaurants and cafes I've been, adventures I've had. These days I often unexpectedly run into people I know when I'm wandering around the city, which I love!

After the session had finished, I made my way down Swanston St to meet up with my flatmate for lunch. Walking down Swanston St was a perfect example of how my perception of Melbourne has shifted since I moved here. When I first arrived in Melbourne, I spent most of my time wandering around on Swanston St. It's a pedestrian busy street that runs north from Flinders St station,which is itself a very busy hub. The street is lined with touristy shops and cheap clothing stores, along with historical buildings, shopping malls, and tram lines. It felt safe to wander around the CBD from Swanston St, as I was surrounded by other newcomers to the city. I made many trips to Target and the QV in those first few months here and came to feel quite at home on Swanston St.

As I settled into uni and moved from a hotel in Preston to a house in Flemington, the central street in my CBD experience shifted from Swanston St to Elizabeth St. I stopped going to Target and QV and started going to Melbourne Central. I even switched to a different bank. Gradually, I lost familiarity with Swanston St. It became touristy, brash, disorienting, a place best avoided. Then, slowly, as my friendship circle expanded, Swanston St became a meeting ground, a place to grab a coffee or a beer or lunch, a place to catch a tram, a place with a bank of ATMs for my bank, a place with specific shops like Virgin, the start of China Town. It became infused with memories, some important, others trivial. It holds a part of my history with this city and as we both continue to exist in this space, that history will grow and become more multifaceted.

Think about the city you live in and how the streets have changed for you over time. What memories do they hold? You might be surprised to realise a seemingly mundane place can be infested with important moments of life history.