People often talk about advice and useful advice they have received but having thought about it I wondered what advice have you been given regarding what not to do in life?

1. Read American Psycho

Divine Maria and my old mate Dani B are both highly educated, intelligent women who both read this book and both stopped reading it halfway through as they both deemed it too vile. As I respect both these women their opinions were good enough for me and I have never read it nor have any desire to do so. I did see the movie when I was in Tokyo though. To this day whenever I hear “Hip To Be Square” I think of Christian Bale taking an ice pick to Jared Leto.

2. Going to Miami

When I backpacked around America in 98 after working in the ski resort I was eager to see as much of America as possible. My father however banned me from going to Miami. He thought it would be too dangerous for me as I was travelling solo and told me that there was a lot of crime there. As my father is a very experienced traveller his advice was good enough for me. I went to Jacksonville while waiting for a train but no further south in Florida than that.

3. Climbing Mt Fuji

Every person I have ever met who did this told me not to. Lois got to the top, claimed she couldn't see anything from the haze and immediately wanted to go back down and get home. Other people expressed similar sentiments. Although I took my ski resort boots with me I defied the old saying "You're a fool if you don't climb Mt Fuji, but you're an even bigger fool if you climb it twice".

Let me know if you have anything interesting or similar...

Thank you to the person who anonymously posted this card. Truer words were never spoken. My life would have been far more uneventful and uninteresting had I met my beloved in my 20s.

 I haven’t shared anything personal about my life here over the last two months but it’s nothing to worry about. Blame assessment. Off the top of my head in the last 6 weeks – October being an especially hectic month – I have had to do a 3000 word essay on bilingual education, a 1500 word Language Autobiography, a 3000 word essay on the civil penalty provisions of the Corporations Act, weekly postings of 500 words, a 5000 word essay on feminism versus multiculturalism, 2 exams, a semester quiz and a 1000 word paper reviewing a journal article. As you can see, writing 11 000 words worth of essays in one month changes your priorities and gives you little time to focus on other things. Last weekend was the first time since August I enjoyed a free weekend, and even then I had a Japanese exam looming in my thoughts.

I am pleased to report that the D word is well and truly under control. I feel much stronger and much happier. Now that everything is coming to an end I am bursting with enthusiasm and focusing on the many opportunities that await me. As soon as assessment comes to an end I shall start walking and swimming again. That is the best advantage of being constantly busy – you lack time to focus on any problems you have. 

I am really excited and really looking forward to 2010. I think it’s going to be a great year full of possibilities for me. Divine Maria wants to go back to Sri Lanka but this time just staying at the beach in Trinco as we both fell in love with the area. As it was previously Tamil Tiger country it is only just getting back on its feet for tourists so the possibilities are endless. This is definitely plausible if I do it as a stopover. 

Anne the magnificent is also looking forward to seeing me when I hit Europe mid-2010. She says she will come to Paris with me to celebrate my birthday and will also fly out to either Hungary or Poland to spend a weekend there with me. I’m so excited about this as I miss both of them dreadfully. Wasn’t planning on hitting London but one of my students wants to see me and ATM said that “when I come to London I have to stay with her”. I must admit I am planning a lot of possible holidays as the AUD is higher against so many currencies, in fact the highest I have ever seen it. At the time of writing it is only 2 cents away from parity with the CAD.

I haven’t felt this enthusiastic, confident or excited about life in a long time. As the proverbial saying goes, I really do believe that it will be “the first day of the rest of my life”. I see big things, glorious, wonderful things in stall for me in 2010. I really am in love with life again.

As for now, I am fantasising about what life will be like when I come back to my beloved hometown. In one of life’s happy coincidences (many of which I have been lucky enough to experience lately) my old neighbour Tess is going away in January so I can housesit from late Dec to early Feb. I haven’t had a summer in Perth since 98/99 and I can’t wait. Outdoor movies, walking along the beach, Kings Park, being an honorary aunt to Fynn and Gil and of course catching up with friends. Hopefully, this will be the start of a new career, new location and an even better life.

In short, life is good and I feel good.

 One of my all-time favourite scenes. The outside shots were filmed in Liverpool and the courthouse is just as impressive in person in my humble opinion. It still chills me that the Guildford Four (and Birmingham Six for that matter) spent so long in prison for something they didn't do and were targeted because they were from Occupied Northern Ireland and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Greater Union / Event Cinemas has a Monday night special, where students can see a movie for $7.00. As a treat to myself I have been taking advantage of this and catching up on my movies (The September Issue, Mao's Last Dancer, An Education, Up, Whip It and Capitalism A Love Story tonight).

Before they start the movie they have an ad where they have hidden the names of several movie titles. As I never take a pen with me I have often wondered what all of them are. Fortunately some kind soul with too much time on their hands has solved the mystery. So for those of you like me who have wondered what the hidden titles are, see below:

Starting in kindergarten, students will take up Mandarin, Korean, Japanese or Indonesian for at least 90 minutes a day, across every class except English and mathematics, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Four government primary schools - Rouse Hill Public and Murray Farm in Sydney's north-west, Scotts Head Public on the North Coast and Campsie Public in Sydney's inner-west - have been selected as the first to specialise in an Asian language.

The Rees Government committed $2.25 million over four years to the Bilingual Schools Program.

"Young children have a far better chance of developing bilingual fluency from an early age," Education Minister Verity Firth said yesterday.

"These bilingual schools will teach two classes of students in kindergarten and Year 1 for 90 minutes each day and eventually will be expanded to all grades," Ms Firth said.

Mandarin-speaking volunteers will assist teachers in class.

It is part of a major push by the Department of Education and Training to put Mandarin at the forefront of language teaching in NSW public schools.

Board of Studies data shows Chinese with 1243 enrolments in the HSC, is now the third most popular language after Japanese and French. Read more on Asian languages in primary schools at The Daily Telegraph

I discovered this movie when I was 16 when Dad asked me to record it for him. Last year I bought him the DVD and we watch it together whenever I visit. Keep an eye out at the 5:00 mark. Goldie Hawn's line about "Right now... " is my all-time favourite line from a movie. You can see why she won Best Supporting Actress for it.

On 60 Minutes this Sunday night they are taking relatives of the Balibo Five to the spot in Balibo where the journalists were murdered by the approaching Indonesian army "caught in crossfire". As you know I am passionate about this cause ( and the movie this week is leading the AFI nominations with 14 - including Best Picture) and want as many people to be as passionate in the fight for justice for both the journalists and the East Timorese people murdered by the Indonesians.

A very big thank you to unfoldedreality for fixing my noise-cancelling headphones out of the goodness of your heart. When I am next in town (hopefully around December) I will buy a beverage at the location of your choice.

My gay boyfriend and I love this movie. Great one-liners such as the one belonging to Bette Davis in this scene:

A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it".

1. Whenever I get snail mail from a loved friend or family member I kiss the envelope before opening it.

2. I pride myself on being one of the last people to get on the plane.

3. I suffer from trichotillomania. I started pulling out my eyelashes when I was 7 and have since moved on to other areas. Girls in my chem class in high school used to tell me off whenever I did this.

4.I am a tea purist. I cannot bring myself to microwave tea or coffee nor pour cold water on coffee or tea and heat it up.

5. I cannot stand the sound of anyone cracking their knuckles.

6. My pet peeve is people who cannot differentiate "stationery / stationary". Especially in supermarkets!!!

7. Living in London gave me a dislike of BMWs and Burberry. Chavs wear fake Burberry and BMWs are the car driven by middle class people wishing they were upper class.

I bought a great poster of this from a store at Fisherman's Wharf in San Fran which shows Abbott & Costello and the entire dialogue written at the base of the poster. The poster still hangs on a wall in my room.

Let's get one thing straight. I think Russell Crowe is an arrogant neanderthal buffoon and I long for the day someone cuts him down to size. But this is one of my all-time favourite movie monologues in a very powerful scene.

Maximus! Maximus! Maximus!

My father introduced me to the Marx Brothers when I was 10 with this wonderful movie. Please watch this scene as it is regarded as Groucho and Chico's best dialogue. I often used to think about this scene when I was a first year contracts student.

The one Stanley Kubrick movie I like. A surefire combination for funniness: Peter Sellers and a drunk Russian President (Yes Dmitri I realise you're sorry...)

Three days ago I did a Living Social Top 5 poll on Facebook about 5 people I would not want to see at the end of my bed.

In the early hours of Sunday morning I got the fright of my life as I woke up and found a complete stranger at the end of my bed.

Turns out it was C's brother. He had been crashing with us over the weekend in C's room was either sleepwalking or drunk from the party he had attended. Kept chucking around my spring cleaning items asking "Where is my bed" and didn't quite comprehend my instructions of "C's room (points) next door". In the end I had to get up and lead him to her room as he mixed up which door was which.

In the meantime that's 5 years off my life expectancy!

loic you are under strict instructions to watch this week's clip!

This is one of my all-time favourite scenes from one of my all-time favourite movies, which I have loved since the age of 10. I was unable to find the scene as one so have had to put in the two scenes separately.

Interesting trivia #1: A lot of the actors who are tearing up and displaying pride in this scene were not acting. Many of them fled Europe and were experiencing genuine emotion during the filming of this scene.
Interesting trivia #2: Humphrey Bogart had no idea why he was nodding or to whom. The director told him to get up there and nod. When he asked why he replied: Just do it!
Interesting trivia #3: Conrad Veidt, who played Nazi Major Strasser, was head of the Anti-Nazi League in Hollywood. He fled Europe because he was one of the Nazis major targets for his anti-Nazi activities.
Interesting trivia #4: I have always though that Canada has the best flag and France has the best anthem. On informing Marie, my Parisian flatmate in Tokyo, she replied, "Are you nuts? It's all about blood and chopping off heads"!
Interesting trivia #5: I once saw this movie on the big screen in Perth and sat next to a guy I had only just met who hogged my popcorn. I whispered that the upcoming scene was my all-time ever favourite scene in a movie and when Claude Rains delivers his magnificent one liner he laughed and clapped out loud. Said man would go on to become my first boyfriend.

in 1990, at exactly 11.10 am WST I got my first crush. At the time this came as something of a relief as I was starting to wonder if heterosexuality was ever gonna kick in. We were on a plane bound for Bangkok on the start of my school French trip. I looked at the back of my Christchurch boy's head and the enxt thing I knew <boing> Cupid had shot an arrow into me. I just sat there staring at the back of his head for hours with a giddy grin on my face.  For the duration of our Bangkok to Stockholm flight (it was 1990 and there was a no fly zone due to the Iraq / Kuwait situation which is why we took such a roundabout route) while the cabin was dark and everyone slept I jsut sat there lsitening to my friend Lucy's walkman which played Simply Red and staring at the back of his sleeping head in a very happy daze.

This also means that...

it's 19 years today since I got to legitimately use an oxygen mark. We were supposed to land in Bangkok at 2.40 pm. At about 2.00 there was this dreadful ringing and everyone put their fingers up to their ears. The next thing we knew <bang> the oxygen masks fell and we all put them on. We were told the cabin was suffering from decompression but there was a very strong smell of fuel as the flight attendants ran up and down the cabin yelling at each other in Thai. Being 16 year olds we did the only thing possible and took pictures of each other with our oxygen masks on. We ended up making an emergency landing in Singapore and to this day I still refuse to fly Thai International.

 Why does it cost $899 to transport your car on the Indian Pacific from Sydney to Perth, but only $689 to transport it from Perth to Sydney?