On my bedside table lie four different books....

a borrowed copy of Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things, Myths of the Ancient Greeks, Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and a very old, secondhand, hardbound copy of Homer's Iliad. Of all four, I've read two of them one-fourths of the way through.

You know how we sometimes buy a dress or blouse (or a shirt if you're a guy) for that occassion that isnt there yet, but just might come up? You think to yourself you're being prepared, that you're foreseeing something and are really proud of it....until time passes and that event never comes around? Sometimes that how I feel with books. I want to have a copy. I want them there. That way, I can read them, know more about the world, be smart and be aware. But soon after reading page one you find yourself not having time,or falling asleep after reading two lines. And then not reading them at all. And then not knowing they are there in the first place.

Maybe this weekend I'll pick up one of them and then finish reading it. And then maybe I'll move on to the next, and the next and the one after that.....

or maybe I'd best set my goal to one page at a time.

Seven months in Melbourne....




From left to right...Des, Sumi and Socs



Des, Socs, Sumi and Bert

Officially in my mid-twenties.

Last Friday September 5 I celebrated my 25th birthday and it marked a lot of "firsts". Its was my first birthday in a foreign country, my first birthday away from home and I had my first birthday celebration without any of my close friends. I have no regrets though. How many people get to celebrate their birthday overseas anyway? More importantly, I wasnt alone. We had our own little dinner party right here at "home",complete with a bit of the bubbly, hors d'oeuvre, pasta, red wine, chips and more wine with candles all around the living and dining room...oh and of course, the balloons from my officemates. See, the night before the party, they made dinner for me and gilbs (who celebrated her birthday the day after I did) and had a cake and balloons everywhere.

Photos to follow soon.