April 2001

Friday, 27 April 2001

My favourite online journaller, Nikol, is talking about being on panels and going to Interactive. I can just tell they're industry do's where people sit around and talk about what they write as if they were Shakespeare reincarnate. I've been trying to keep my bitterness inside, but now it's festering.

Watch out Cap'n, she's gonna blow.

I have no respect for writing support agencies. I have no respect for the Queensland Writers Centre, the Queensland Writers Festival and only 1 milligram more for the Omega Christian Writers Group. I got screwed by all of the above - I got constructively criticised right out of circulation.

Those well-meaning writing industry types put the cause of Anna Harris, Writer, back at least five years and yes, I'm bitter about it. Bitter and twisted.

...,Bastards.

When anyone mentions a "panel" or a "workshop" my skin positively crawls.

So, no, I have no time for so-called industry support bodies. I would much rather be associated with journalists. one rung above used car salesmen they may be, but at least they're not namby-pamby chardonnay-quaffing Nick-Earls-loving wannabes. At least they uncover the riff-raff and occasionally save a life or two.

A recent story on a Current Affair or Today Tonight reported on a post office in Brisbane where 20 of the staff had cancer and 4 staff had died in the last couple of years. During the interview some doctor employed by  Australia Post said that everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about.

Apparently everything was NOT fine, and I heard in the news yesterday that the State Government has stepped in. YAY. They have requested air and soil tests to be done on the property which is located adjacent to some big electrical thingy. This is a classic example of the good that journalists can do.

I'm not bitter towards Nikol. Her web site is my favourite on-line journal ever (closely followed by Dick Blow). It just happened to be her sitting on panels that set me off. I would say 'I thought she was cooler than that', but that would be way out of line.

From my desk calendar:

There is much in Scripture stressing our need to have faith in God. Psalm 37:5 takes us a step further. It not only admonishes us to trust, it promises that when we do, God will act in a supernatural way to answer our need. Dwell on that for a moment. We trust, God acts.

Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him and He will do it.

Psalm 37:5

By the way, I got offered a job today, but not with the Police.

My desk calendar,...

A Closer Walk, by Catherine Marshall, "is a splendid tool for gaining insight into select portions of Scritpure".

Thursday, 26 April 2001

Part 2

I can be a horrible person sometimes.

Thursday, 26 April 2001

Part 1

I've got a job interview with the Police today.

I can't write much because I'm too busy eating donuts and practising saying "Step out of the car please, Sir".

Tuesday, 24 April 2001

Oh dear. I've just discovered another "Destination Digest". This is terrible. I'm no longer unique. I'm a mere copy cat.

What will I do? What can I do? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

I've just spent way too much time trying to submit my site to lots of search engines etc. At the same time, I stumbled across Red Earth - Australian Journals. This is a web ring for Australian online journals. This is very exciting. I read about five of them but there were a fair few which were down or not updated regularly. (Tetch, Tetch!) Out of the ones I read my favourite was Conditioned. I'm in touch with her desires. Oh well.

So I joined the Red Earth web ring.

Being unemployed sucks. I have a million housework / study related tasks to do. I could be very busy,... but motivation is low. So very very low. [sigh]

I have the longest periods in the world. I'm up to day 12 now, what is that? When I had the "birds and bees" talk with my Mum, she said they would go for 4 - 7 days. What kind of a mutant am I?

Mutation - the story of my life. Read about it here at Destination Digest.

By the way, I am forced to take back at least one of the cheers for Kate Langbroek (see earlier entry) because of that hideous dress she wore to the Logies, AND without a bra. She has big boobies and there they were jingling about in front on the nation with no regard for class or style.

And what about those nipples? I'm sure she iced them on the way up to the stage.

She may have earned brownie points with the lewd wet t-shirt loving minority audience, but not with me. No wonder she's such a hit on Melbourne radio.

I'm sorry Kate, but as a representative of us voluptuous types, you have let us down badly. Shame, shame, shame.

Destination Digest is also a travel magazine edited by Toni Dabbs from Douglas College, Canada.

Sunday, 22 April 2001

I said that one day, when I get the courage, I would write and tell you what Jesus has done in my life.

Well,... today's the day.

Jesus has been my best and closest friend through a million hard times. One of the most special times was during high-school. As if puberty isn't enough to cope with,... I came down with all the worst symptoms of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (a.k.a PCOS). They include:

• Hirsuitism  - that is, dark hairs in places where there shouldn't be hair e.g. face, neck, stomach, bum and my legs got way hairier than a normal girls. If I didn't shave them, my legs looked like a man's legs.

• Sudden weight gain - I put on 20 kilos in two years. I wasn't particularly thin to start with.

• Cystic acne - I developed large cysts on my neck, back and even had one on my face for a while.

• Virilisation - masculinisation of features, muscles etc due to the increased testosterone in my blood (as a result of malfunctioning ovaries).

The other PCOS symptoms were less obvious and less immediately annoying e.g. no periods (YAY), high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

So back to Jesus. The Lord was omnipresent and omnipotent. One day we were mucking about at school and drawing cartoons of our friends. A friend, who obviously wasn't much of a friend, drew me with a beard. I went home and cried for hours. Although it was painful and still brings tears to my eyes as I write, the other thing I know is that Jesus was there for me. Every word of scripture that I read penetrated my heart. Every Psalm I read seemed to be a direct response to my heart's cry.

Jesus was not some dead religious figure of 2000 years ago. He was, and is, a resurrected God who knew every thought, every pain that I went through. He sat there beside me and comforted me through His Word and the Holy Spirit.

I used to bleach, pluck and cut the hairs on my face. After a while, I saved up some money from a part-time job and traveled to Brisbane to have electrolysis. It was done by injecting a needle into the hair follicle and then pushing a button which zapped an electric current into the hair follicle. It was supposed to kill the follicle and stop the hair from returning. It was so painful I used to lay there with tears streaming down my face while the nurse did it. I was so desperate to be rid of this hair that I would tell her to keep going while I cried.

After about six treatments my face got infected and the process became even more painful. I couldn't bear it and stopped going.

They say it's just like a pin-prick. I could handle a pin-prick. But do it a hundred times in one inch of skin with each prick followed by an electrical charge that made my fillings jump. The charge was like chewing on aluminium foil. It was too much.

I went home full of sorrow and self-pity. I kept asking the Lord why, why, why? He told me "His grace was sufficient for me". I struggled with that and I couldn't help but compare myself to my sister, or my friends who didn't have to go through this.

Medical assistance for this condition has been less than impressive. My diagnosis - for the same set of symptoms - changed from "Hirsuitism - purely cosmetic, go to a beauty salon and have something done about it", to suspected PCOS, although nothing showed up on ultrasounds.

I was then treated for a good ten years for suspected PCOS, although nothing improved. Nothing showed up in ultrasounds until I had a transvaginal ultrasound in 1996 where the first cysts were seen. Treatments were all inadequate and usually didn't do much more than give me a period - and I needed that like a hole in the head.

If you could choose between having a period and not having a period, you'd take the latter any day.

I remained hirsuit and over weight with high blood pressure and cholesterol. Despite regular diets I could not lose weight, and in fact, put on weight at an average of 2 - 3 kilos a year.

In early 2000, medical science started publishing stuff all over the Internet about the use of Metformin in the treatment of PCOS. They discovered a link between diabetes and PCOS. So, with printouts of "The Lancet" in hand, I marched off to my GP and requested some of the wonder drug, Metformin. What followed was a referral to an Endocrinologist and a series of tests for diabetes.

Yes, I'm diabetic. Yes, I can take Metformin for it. YAY.

So, I still struggle with all the same problems of PCOS, except now I can add infertility to the list. Metformin helps my cholesterol and my sugar digestion. For the first time in 10 -13 years my weight has remained the same for an entire year.

And where was Jesus during all of this? Walking with me, like a friend. I'd read the Bible and some nights He'd speak right to my heart, other nights He didn't. Whenever I really needed it, He did. God's Word is powerful.

Over the years there has been heaps of prayer about my PCOS / Diabetes. God's been leading me out of sickness, one step at a time. He led DH and I to Melbourne for 2.5 years. During that time I received exceptional medical care and have made more progress along the road to recovery that all the 10 years prior.

Doctors used to have my total respect, but after all I've been through, I know they're just the kids from school who got the top tertiary entrance score.

"Though we are slaves, our God has not deserted us in our bondage. He has shown us kindness in the sight of the kinds of Persia. He has granted us new life to rebuilt the house of our God and repair its ruins, and he has given us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem".
Ezra 9:9

When medicos refer to PCOS they talk about the cysts appearing like a "string of pearls" on ultrasounds. One night, as I prayed, I believe the Holy Spirit showed me that they were not pearls but chains that bound my ovaries. I was in bondage to this condition. But as the scripture in Ezra 9:9 says, although we're in bondage we can still rebuild the house of God.

Another word for house of God is temple, and in the 1 Corinthians 6:19 it says that our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit. I knew this when I read Ezra 9:9 and so was deeply encouraged as I read this scripture and thought about things that my doctors had told me.

As much as I am on Metformin, the wonderdrug, I still need to do a lot of work myself. Diabetes is a lifestyle disease and while hereditary factors make me susceptible to it, lifestyle factors actually make it worse.

Diet and exercise are two key lifestyle factors that I can use to rebuild my temple. I struggle with both, but I believe I'm coming into a place where I will success.

I will be giving up work soon to study full-time. I can hardly wait. Yes, it will be hard work, BUT there will be time for diet and exercise. DH and I will both benefit from me being at home. God is blessing us.

I believe He's also given me a promise to hold on to. It's about healing. It's also about provision. With me not working we'll be not earning a significant amount of money which could have been put towards a house. But God is good and God is mighty. He has given me, the Barren Woman, this wonderful promise to hold on to.

"He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord."
Psalm 113:9

God IS good.

love,
Anna.

Travel,...
I grew up in the small town of Kyogle, NSW. It is about 3 hours by car or train to Brisbane, Qld.

Thursday, 19 April 2001

Sheesh. Thursday already.

When you're unemployed you lose track of the days.

[sigh]

I've just discovered I am a left-handed light-bulb replacer. My right hand just doesn't have the dexterity to cope with bayonet cap fittings. It's funny the things that you discover when you're unemployed, isn't it?

Like, I have a scripture for 2001. It was tied to the end of my Christmas cracker in 2000. It's about God making the darkness light etc. So anyway, I decided my lounge room was just too dull. So I took out the 25 watt bulbs in the light fitting and replaced them with 100 watt bulbs. Such an improvement! I think I could almost read in that light now.

Another funny thing,... I was just watching a tape of last nights "The Panel". Lame, I know, but I was so exhausted after a hard day of job interviews (Refer to yesterday's entry for proof).

Back to the point,... at the end of the show Kate Langbroek said that as much as men want them to, women never refer to their undies / knickers as "panties". Thank you Kate. You have just taken my side in a long running argument that I have with my husband and one or two of his mates. It is a blokey fantasy that all women wear "panties". Just the sound of the word makes me want to throw up.

Three cheers for Kate Langbroek because:

a). She doesn't call her underwear "panties".

b). She flaunts voluptuous curves on prime time TV, and

c). Anyone that used to be on RRR can't be all bad, huh? She is in the ACE company of John Saffran (legendary St Kilda fan who streaked through the streets of Israel) and Dave O'Neil (my unemployment mentor).

Alli says she's my number 1 fan. I'm so impressed that anyone actually reads this site that I thought she deserved a special mention. YAY ALLI. Thanks for dropping by. (:

The Panel,...
Now there's a crew of aging comics. They used to have an edge when they were on the ABC. I could never get enough of Graham and the Colonel. Now they've sold out and turned into South-Yarra-dwelling trendy-bum aging mainstreamers.

I have this theory that Rob Sitch has become just like Mike Moore, the epitomy of everything he mocked in Frontline.

Wednesday, 18 April 2001

It's been a hard couple of days full of job interviews and stuff. I'm over it. I queued in Centrelink for hours yesterday only to be told it would be over a week until I get a Job Network card. So I grumbled a lot and decided I'd be better off without Centrelink's so called 'help'. It's more harm than good.

In between interviews today I went to the Career Reference Centre in the city. I read up on what it takes to be a writer. It was good to remind myself.

[sigh]

I'm too tired to write anymore stuff, but when I was swotting up on being a writer one of the documents said that I should write everyday. So, anyway, I decided I'd better pull my finger out and do something.

Good Night.

Good (no, make that Fantastic) Friday
Friday, 13 April 2001

I have just read the following sentence:

"What a privilege we have to tell the world how Christ has come to meet our most critical and foundational needs: life, identity, acceptance, security and significance."

Quoted from One day at a time - the devotional for overcomers by Neil T Anderson and Mike and Julia Quarles.

One day, I'll get the courage to tell you about Jesus and what he's done in my life. I'm not quite sure why I'm afraid to tell you about it.

Stay tuned.

Thursday, 12 April 2001

I have just realised that the choices I make during the next seven days could affect my entire future. That's a big deal.

What if I get a job as a lackey in a media organisation - it could make me or break me. Or, what if I managed to get a job as a TAFE tutor? That could change the entire complexion of my writing.

I sussed out the qualifications necessary to become a career counsellor today, and they are surprisingly few. [grin]

I missed out on the Power Link job today. I'm not too fussed though. I have a real peace about the whole job situation and I know that I'll find something good soon.

I stand on the threshold of my future as a writer.

The lush tranquil garden pictures on the Power Link web site are actually inside their Brisbane offices. Pretty lush, pretty impressive. I know I'd be killing for a desk beside the man-made creek. Apparently it has frogs in it as well.

Wednesday, 11 April 2001

My Uni assignment is due today. I just posted it. This was the first time I had to ask for an extension on an assignment. The interstate move was my excuse and my lecturer [brown nose mode] was generous and fair in approving me a one week extension.

Now it's over I should be getting on with life, with unpacking, with job applications. Problem is, I have a huge sense of tiredness and lethargy. I am incredibly run down, and today when I was going to have the sleep-in that I intended to have last Wednesday, DH woke me up to help him find his belt. I was mildly annoyed and didn't get out of bed, I just barked directions from under the doona. Needless to say, I was wide awake by the end of it and there was no going back. [sigh]

I'm also sleeping badly because I'm using a strange pillow. I think it's given me a headache every night that I've used it. I'm used to a proper neck pillow.

The spare room has been a low priority up until now, it looks like a courier's depot. DH and I are both getting jacked off with not being able to find stuff, and consequently having to hunt through boxes. I am supposed to be making a serious effort to unpack and clean up today.

No, I haven't started yet.

Maybe I will after I eat something. I heard a good radio show about Diabetes today. It was an interview with a Dietician. I learned a couple of new facts that I was unaware of:

1. Protein slows down the absorption of sugar into the blood stream ie. it is low glycaemic.

2. Saturated fats raise the blood sugar ie. they are high glycaemic.

These two little gems are useful bits of info for me when I'm choosing my junk food. (-:

Ironically, about 10 minutes after that radio interview, I went to the supermarket and bought lots of junk food. I feel sick. I want to throw up.

Yes, I realise how sucky that sounds. You never know when your lecturer is going to stumble across your web site. (-:

Regarding the 10 day gap

During the 10 day gap DH and I were pretty damn busy waiting for the removalists, unpacking and searching for places to put stuff. I'll fill in more details at some stage.

Sunday, 1 April 2001

I'm in Canberra sitting on Barb's floor. I can see what they mean about it being a cold place. Even in March / April it is pretty cold.

I saw both parliament houses, the war memorial / Anzac Parade and the new National Museum. Canberra is full of monuments and national departments. Apparently, around 50% of Canberrans are public servants. In the past it was much higher. It's easy to see from the clinical style of buildings on Northbourne Avenue, that most of them were constructed for either:

1. Public Service Offices, or

2. Public Servant Accommodation.

The buildings look very grey (there is way too much concrete here) but it reminds me of Griffith Uni. They're obviously aware that somebody went overboard with the concrete, so then they balanced it out with plenty of trees. The only other style of building I noticed reminds me of Monash Uni at Clayton, tall and ugly. 

Canberra is very sprawling. There are plenty of trees, forests etc in between estates etc. Apparently they call it the "Bush Capital".

I had a terrible night's sleep, but it was nothing to do with Barb's bed. Barb's bed was warm and cosy and lovely. I am in a lot of pain from all the work I've been doing. Every muscle aches and my head was also aching last night. I just lay in bed staring at the room trying to get to sleep. I went crazy and eventually got up and had some panadol. I managed to get to sleep after that.

It's scary to think that the pain I've been going through was self inflicted. What kind of person would put themselves through what I've been through? Real Estates (Sandy Anderson Real Estate, in particular) can be very scary when they want to.

We face a 6 hour drive today. It shouldn't be too bad. We've had a little sleep in (not that I could sleep) but we should be a bit more human after getting to our hotel and doing some washing. I hope the weather is fine overnight in Singleton.

Enough of the writing. I have no witty repartee, no amusing observations to make. I'm just sore, tired and I'd like to go home now.

Please?

The Bush Capital,...
Apparently the new parliament house building is set deep into Capital Hill so that ordinary Australians can walk over the top of it. The Parliament is (theoretically) never above us.