Blogging Chicks

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I'm almost a geek

Check out the new banner!

It only took me all of 3 and a half hours to figure out how to change the code of the Blogger template... that's a goddamn record for a internet-luddite like myself!

got a pulse

Should I have a resting pulse of 122 beats per minute? Just wondering.....

Kello Kitty, Yoyos and Self-Censorship

On Saturday mornings I teach English to 4 ten-year-olds here in Shanghai. Their English is pretty good, they are at the age where they are still excited by learning, and I find their enthusiasm utterly infectious.

The children come from four different Taiwanese families who all transfered to Shanghai for business. These families are quite well-off, and as a result the children are fairly worldly for their age.

Today I was teaching them about the countries of the world, and asked them to tell me as many countries as they could off the top of their heads. At one point they had suggested China and Taiwan as separate countries. Seeing as they are Taiwanese I included it on the board, although in any other classroom here in Shanghai Taiwan is adamantly refered to as part of China (along with Tibet, but that's another story*).

When I included Taiwan with all the other countries of the world Sophia piped up with, "Taiwan is not a country, it's part of China."

In response Ruby shouted angrily, "It is NOT! Taiwan is a country! It's OUR country!"

Looking terrified, Sophia quickly turned to Ruby in hushed tones, "Shhh, you can't say that. Just say it is China."

Along with Hello Kitty** and Yoyo's these children have already learnt the importance of self-censorship.



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* My contract for the other school I teach at part-time has a stipulation that any teacher who talks about the "Three Ts" will be immediately dismissed (i.e. Tibet, Taiwan and Tiannamen).
** Hello Kitty is not just popular with the kids here, but also with the 'adults'. I actually saw a black Porche Boxter with the interior entirely decorated with Hello Kitty: Hello Kitty seat covers, steering wheel covers, sun visors, rear-vision mirror covers, etc.

"Whhooo are you?"

I've been getting a lot of hits lately, and not all of them are from people doing unmentionable google searches for dead rodents or worse.

So I have been wondering lately: Who are you?

I have decided that in this little faux-communuty called cyber-space, it is time to reach out and say hello to your fellow neighbours.

It's simple, don't be shy: leave a comment and tell us who you are, perhaps where you come from, and even if you have a blog of your own (at the very least it is good advertising).

Go on people, come out of the shaddows. I really don't bite.... often.

Reflections

This is my latest painting, quite different from the last few:


Reflections- acrylic on canvas 70cm x 150cm

see more at www.loudcreations.com

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, FLOOR!

Someones mummy should lock up the liquor cabinet!

(kisses to Laura from Aunty Lou)

For everything else, there's Mastercard

Rabbits.



They don't seem like particularly troublesome pets, now do they?

I have posted about our two rabits before, their fighting and needing to be desexed. Well we went through all the worry and expense of the operations to have them desexed, and they are still fighting. It takes a few weeks for the testosterone to get out of their little systems, but after 4 weeks we thought it was time to re-introduce them.

We did everything according to the book. We had kept them seperated but still able to see and smell each other so as not to "un-bond". We took them into a neutral environment to reintroduce them, and we held them next to each other peacefully. Then we let them go.

You know the Tasmanian Devil in the Warner Bros cartoons? The one that spins around so fast he is a blur? That's what we had. Bunny Blur, with tufts of fur flying everywhere.

In the process, the previously peaceloving Francis (in self-defence quite possibly) ripped an inch into Marcel's ear.

So the end of his ear is ripped half-off, and their is blood everywhere.

I frantically called the vet, only to be told that they closed at midday (it was 2pm), and there would be a RMB1000 (AU$160) out-of-hours emergency fee. Knowing that we had no choice, we bundled Marcel up and took him to the vet for his second ever anesthetic and operation, at a grand total of RMB1870 (AU$303)!

Now I have to force feed him antibiotics twice a day with a (needle-less) syringe in his mouth. Which he HATES, and Phil and I have the scratch marks up and down our arms to prove it. If anyone has any tips on how to medicate your rabbits, PLEASE let me know!

Rabbits: $100
Food: $20/month
Desexing: $325
Emergency Vet Bill: $303
The feeling you get when they snuggle into the crook of your arm for a pat: Priceless.....

...Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sell one of my kidneys to pay for the vet bill.

HAPPY MO...err too late.

Well I tried sending the email 9 seperate times today, with no success. Something demon-like is definately inside my computer.
I have resorted to a public announcement: Happy Mother's Day Mum!!!
But by now in Australia it is 1.30am the morning after Mother's Day, and I've proven myself, with the aid of a bad internet connection, to be a bad daughter.

It's the thought that counts, right??

Balancing act

I never thought I'd be happy to see this:

Total debits: $0.00 DR
Total credits: $4.67 CR
Net position for accounts: $4.67 CR

Summary position: $4.67 CR

Yes, the bad news is that my bank account has only $4.67 in credit, but the good news is that I have finally paid off the debit amount.
Looks like I won't be declaring bankruptcy after all. At least not this week....

PS On another note: How totally ridiculous is the spelling of "bankruptcy"? Or is it just me...

Here at last!

So the website I have been promising for ages is here at last!
check out www.loudcreations.com... a gallery of my artistic endeavours. Yes, the internet now has yet another self-important website... just what the world needed!

Thanks to John, Phil and Liz for their work in getting this off the ground.

seasons

This is mainly what I have been doing with myself lately:

"Spring":

Acrylic on canvas

"Summer":

Acrylic on canvas 70cm x 120cm

Photos courtesy of Philippe Roy at Rimagine

You know you've been in Asia too long when....

...you go shopping, pull a bra out of the sales bin, shake a bloody great big cockroach off it, and go try it on anyway.

FYI

For future reference: saying "WOW I haven't had diarrhea for three whole days!" IS in fact tempting fate.

The Rabbits Lived!!

They are alive! They are home, tucked into their little beds (i.e. litter boxes) munching away on hay. They are admitedly a little druged up, but getting back to their antics slowly.
I had convinced myself that they would die on the operating table, as it is a very risky procedure here in China. I was so convinced they had died that by the time I rang the vet at 4pm yesterday afternoon (with fingernails bitten down to the quick) the conversation went like this:

Me: "Hi this is Louise, I'm calling to check on my two rabbits" (voice unnaturally high as if being strangled from the inside)
Receptionist: "OK wait a moment I check" (followed by rapid chinese conversation with someone at the other end of the line. I desperately rack my brains to remember the word 'dead' in chinese. I'm positive they are discussing how to break the news to me.)
---------------agonising wait--------------------
Receptionist: "Ok, the vet says you can pick them up by 6pm"
Me: "Huh?" (She wants me to come and collect their dead bodies??)
Receptionist: "You can take them home."
Me: "What? So they are ok?? They're alive??!!"
Receptionist: "Yes"
Me: "OHMYGODTHANKYOUI'LLBERIGHTTHERE!!!!!!!"
Receptionist: "er... ok...."

So against all odds the rabbits lived. All that worry and expense (and oh my god! the expense!), and the little buggers are fine.

Biting my nails

I just dropped of the Bunnies at the vet for their *snip snip* operation. My little boys are losing their manhood.
The last rabbit I took to the vet for this proceedure never came home.
I know it is important, as they have started fighting so much they are hurting each other.
But I still feel like the grim reaper.
Is 10am too early to start drinking?

Panic Stations

The definition of Post-Tramatic Stress Disorder:

A lapsed good Catholic girl waking up on Good Friday to the sound of nearby hammering and construction.... prompting flash-backs of Jesus being nailed to the cross during the yearly Stations of the Cross reinactment.



Even though I knew "Jesus" was just a scruffy-haired teenager (preferably with a beard) from the parish, shoved into a white terry-cloth bathrobe, and even though I knew he was holding the steel pegs ('nails') in his fist while some other kid used a mallet to "hammer" at them, it still gave me the willies every year.

Why do we complain about violent computer games? The bible stories are bad enough! And that's just the New Testament... the Old Testament is positively horrifying!!

Note: lets not even talk about the definition of cruelty- the fact that I am allergic to chocolate. Easter was never really much fun for me, now was it?

Serengeti

Another abstract painting I finished last week: I like to imagine the wild things hiding in the brush strokes (click on the painting to see a larger image)



"Serengeti", acrylic on canvas, 60cm x 150cm

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry 'The Peace of Wild Things'

Far too many people I know have died this year (at this point the tally is unbelievably up to 5 people as of the end of March).
At times I feel as though my heart has been ripped, still-beating, out of my chest. At times I am so filled with rage I could scream.
And at times I feel completely empty, dead inside.

This poem helps, in it's peace-filled beauty and simplicity.

A month ago Phil an I welcomed two gorgeous bunnies into our family:


Marcel


Francis

Marcel is about 1 week older than Francis, but as they had been together from such a young age we referred to them as brothers. Every night they would snuggle up together to sleep, and in typical brotherly fashion, Francis would follow his big brother around like a shaddow.

Yet I came across them last week, and realised that Marcel is having slightly more than "brotherly thoughts" towards Francis.

I know there are support groups out there for parents of gay children, but what does one do about gay pets??

Honestly, we knew this would probably happen, and knew that we would have to take them to the vet to be de-sexed eventually. If not, two adult male rabbits kept together tend to fight... perhaps fighting over the mirror or who gets to chew at the Barbara Streisand album first... But we thought they would have a month or so more of innocence before this happened.

I guess it's time to head off to the vet. My little boys have grown up.