the end is nigh

…as the NaBloPoMo draws to an end, I consider endings…

NaBloPoMo has been tough for me, I was definitely up against it for a while there. The combination of weekends, fatigue, and an unhappy HardMan Harvey took their toll on me. But I made it through, with only a smattering of useless posts. The bogans were met, and lost. They may well return as a semi-regular feature, I like them. I got comments from strangers, and links from strangers’ blogs.

An American in Czechezlovakia made me look like a pathetic amateur, by completing his 6th consecutive NaNoWriMo – 50,000 words trumps my blogging any day.

There is another end in sight. I have 16 and a half working days left at the hospital. Despite my constant whining about this place for the last 9 years, I am actually going to miss some of it. I’ll miss the coffee guys, the tellers in the Credit Union downstairs, the close proximity to Agra Sweet, and even some of the workers (the Old School Crew and the Angry Mormon).

But there’s one thing I will not miss: the kids. I have never been able to cope with the kids at the hospital. 7 year olds dying from cancer, newborns with HIV or Heroin addictions, kids with neural misfires or 50 pipes and tubes sticking out of their bodies. They make me cry inside every time I see them, and 9 years of it hasn’t hardened me at all. I weep for them, their parents, their brothers and sisters. And I thank God that there are people here who help them every day. People who are stronger than me.

I imagine my blogging will slow down a little now, hopefully we’ll have no more of the stupidly short postings. I’m sure I’ll be flat out in my new job next year; it will be interesting to see how much energy I have left to talk to you all.

It’s been sweet, but now it’s time for you all to get outside in the sun, and kick the metaphorical footy around a bit.

</NaBloPoMo>

i am not a linkblogger

I don’t like to just link to things.

BUT.

This deserves it. Taking technology to brave new worlds.

The RollerToaster.

(not my final NaBloPoMo post)

the dream returns!

As a young man, I was blessed with many and lengthy dreams. When holidaying in Shoreham with friends, they would gather in the morning to hear me re-tell my story-like dreams.

And then I got a little older, and sadder, and the dreams dried up. I still had dreams, but they were dull and short, just a snippet of something – a deranged clown singing a mournful song on a razor-stringed acoustic – that sort of thing. I had the occaisional lengthy dream, but they were getting more like the Tasmanian House of Large Scissors and Raging Seas and Vampires Staring At Me Through The Window Watching Just Watching dreams that I had as a young young boy, which were Not Good.

Anywho, last night, to my surprise, I had a big long dream. I’ll try to recap it, but I’ve been awake for a while, so the goodness is fading.

Mrs Gizo met Beck, who was on tour, and she asked him to come over to our place after his last show, and he said yes. We went to meet him in St Kilda, and he asked if his roommates could come along – they looked alot like the guys from OutKast, so we said yeah. Then we went and brushed our teeth on the Esplanade (with no toothpaste, of course), where we met a couple of Euro-backpacker girls, who were coming over too.

Later on, at home, Beck knocked on the door with his OutKast friends, and came into the kitchen. I was worried, because we were having all these people over, but there was only one 6′er of Mountain Goat IPA in the fridge. But luckily there turned out to be a whole lot more. The Euro-backpackers turned up soon after, in a long-yet-short old white bus, which was full of ladies from the Blue Rinse Set.

I was keen to get a photo of Beck in our kitchen , so I could submit it for the latest MacTalk photo competition, but when I went to the lounge to get my camera, Damien Leith was sprawled across my beanbag, pulling apart Crumpet’s digital SLR (not Mr Crumpet’s 400D, this was a Nikon). I felt compelled to watch, and took a bunch of photos of him doing it, because I remembered the Crumpet thought he was a spunk. He was having alot of trouble reassembling the camera, which made me giggle.

And that’s about it. Apologies for the rambling nature of this post, but it’s the only way I know to get these dreams out – if I try to sculpt them I forget them, so I just let them pour out.

you may call me scrooge

I really didn’t think I’d get to post this in November, but life is full of surprises, isn’t it.

On my way to work this morning, I spied my first Christmas Lunacy House. Yep, it has started. Way out in BoganLand the consumers have started gathering all manner of cutout buildings, candy-cane lights, and inflatable reindeer to plaster all over their houses, and lower the property values.

It bothers me. So much pathetic plastic bullshit propagating ridiculous notions of Christmas. Regardless of whether you believe Christmas is about celebrating the birth of the Christ Child, or a special time to gather and appreciate family, friends and love – there is no place for inflatable glow in the dark santa’s bums in chimneys.

I don’t know what you think Christmas is about, but I can guarantee it’s not about buying gimmicky north pole crap.

almost out

27 days, and i’m almost done for.
HardMan has been having lots of teeth problems, and i’m too busy for this right now.

pathetic weekends

i really suck at weekends. truly.

netted a bunch of fruit trees and the HardMan is suffering.

end transmission.

edit: Just to clarify, my weekend was great, but “gizo + weekends + blog = pathetic”

it happens again

same as a couple of weekends ago….

too busy, and then vetti and rugby…..

i am definately NOT a weekend blogger….

it is done…

I have handed in my resignation.

Even though I am still worried about the future I am no longer worried about the resignation. It well smoothly, my boss understood, the Gerneal Manager understood, I even got to suggest a possible replacement. All good.

Now that’s out of the way I can focus on panicking about the new job. Heh.

i feel a little faint

In fact, Mrs Gizo just called me to say that my 6 page Offer of Employment arrived in the mail.

I feel like I’m going to throw up.

if I were a medievil landmass

I once wrote an email something like this: “If I were a medievil landmass, writers would say that a great sadness lay across the land…”

It’s probably no surprise to you all that sometimes I get pretty darn miserable, you’ve all probably seen it, and you may well have been around at times when you believe it may have started. I sometimes think I know, and then I remember something from an earlier time, or some other counter-information. Sometimes I think I should talk to my parents, and ask “why did you do … back when …”, and sometimes I dont.

It doesn’t matter, really. The Whys Hows and Whens are in the past, and although I’m sure that some people would say that I need to find out where I’ve been to find out where I need to go, I’m not so sure. All I know is that I’d love to break the back of this habit – for now. Ask me again tomorrow, or next week, and I might be more accomodating of the warm reliability of low self-esteem, or whatever it is.

Anywho, I just came across this article in The Age, and was struck in particular by the following quote:

“There’s plenty of books out there on the subject, but this was the first one that actually said: ‘You know, you actually allow this to happen to you. Every time the black dog [depression, negative thoughts] comes into your head, you’ve let him in.’”

Yeah, it’s a bit of that whole “the lightbulb’s got to want to change” thing, isn’t it. But it does hold some merit. I am prone to wrapping myself up in that feeling, and being comfortable with it. It’s probably the one thing about me that most frustrates Mrs Gizo, and so it should be the highest priority thing to change.

And so, I try to change. Kick me, slap me, don’t placate me. I ask of you, keep me on the forward path. Eyes on the prize, and et-cetera.

Jeez, I should stop being so open, shouldn’t I? This will undoubtedly come and bite me on the bum later in life…