There’s a person. She’s pleasant and even actively interested in how I feel and what I’m doing. She’s really nice to me. She asks me questions and offers help.

She makes me feel uneasy. I get along with most people, especially nice, interesting people. But this person… something about her makes me feel tense when I’m around her.

I think… I think it’s because I feel like she’s putting it on, all this niceness. When I am with someone, my instinct is to reflect their attitude, their language, their level of energy. I usually do this without thinking. When I interact with this particular person, I struggle to match the intensity of her scrutiny. It drains me. It makes me feel fake. I find myself wracking my brain, trying to be thoughtful and creative, otherwise I will have to repeat the same inane pleasantries over and over again. It’s tiring but I can’t do any less because then I’d feel like I was being rude.

I’m afraid I’ve put myself in her bad books in a big way at least three times this year. And every time I think of my unintended misdemeanors, I feel icky.

As a result, I’m not sure I like this person. Or rather, I don’t enjoy being around her. It’s no fault of hers. Perhaps there are just some people that you don’t click with.

Sally seems to know exactly what will make me giggle. Remember the Magic Roundabout? Anyway, here’s another one of her carefully targeted email forwards. I’ve taken out all the ones I didn’t ‘get’. I know it ruins the integrity of the ‘forward’ but hey, it’s my blog.

Phone answering machine message “If you want to buy marijuana, press the hash key…”

A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Gladwrap for shorts.
The shrink says, “Well, I can clearly see you’re nuts.”

I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn’t find any.

I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he couldn’t reach the meat off the top shelf. And he said, “No, the steaks are too high.”

My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli. He was pulled in by a strong currant.

A man came round in hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, “Doctor, doctor, I can’t feel my legs!”
The doctor replied, “I know you can’t, I’ve cut your arms off”.

Man goes to the doc, with a strawberry growing out of his head.
Doc says, “I’ll give you some cream to put on it.”

A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet.
“My dog’s cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him? “
“Well,” says the vet, “let’s have a look at him” So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth.
Finally, he says, “I’m going to have to put him down.”
“What? Because he’s cross-eyed? “
“No, because he’s really heavy.”

What do you call a fish with no eyes?
A fsh.

Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off.

“You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen. It said, ‘Parking Fine’. So that was nice.”

A man walked into the doctors, he said, “I’ve hurt my arm in several places.”
The doctor said, “Well don’t go there any more.”

Ireland’s worst air disaster occurred early this morning when a small two-seater Cessna plane crashed into a cemetery. Irish search and rescue workers have recovered 1826 bodies so far and expect that number to climb as digging continues into the night.

Remember the email footer issues? Well, I complained to the marketing manager in Melbourne. I complained to IT. I then conspired with IT to gang up against the Melbourne marketing manager. When that didn’t work, I took my case all the way to the highest marketing echelons in the company — Corporate Services in Sydney.

Good news. Apparently, I have been heard.

And now, my company sends all its emails in HTML, thus solving everything.

Now my emails are twice the size and in random fonts.

OH. WELL. LIKE. I. CARE.

This is what I say when I’m trying to explain to people who are scared of public speaking why it’s a good idea to join Toastmasters.

Speaking in front of large groups is often nerve-wracking for people. That’s because when you have to make a presentation, it’s to clients, at a conference or a community meeting — and you only get one chance to get your message across.

No wonder public speaking is terrifying. It’s all or nothing. If these are the stakes every time you have to make a speech, when can you practice?

You can practice at Toastmasters. Toastmasters is full of people like you. They’ve joined because they want to be better speakers. They’re supportive. They would never make fun of anyone for stuffing up.

I’ve got a story for you. This happened backstage at the grand final of the international Toastmasters competition one year. The contestants were waiting to get on stage. One guy was relaxing against the wall. Another guy was pacing anxiously backwards and forward, forward and backwards.

“What’s wrong, mate?” the relaxed guy said.

“I’m nervous, really nervous,” said the anxious man.

“Nervous?” The first man was incredulous. “What for? It’s Toastmasters! Even if you’re crap, they’ll still clap!”

Even if you’re crap, they’ll still clap. That, my friends, is the philosophy of Toastmasters.

I’ve discovered a website that is almost exactly synchronised with atomic clocks. “How exciting!” I thought. “Another thing to be strictly correct about!”

My watch has always run about 1.5 minutes fast but since my website discovery, I’ve wound it back so I can have the exact time.

Now that my watch shows the correct time, I have an unreasonable fear that I’m going to be late for everything, especially the train, which I’ve now discovered actually does often run on time instead of always late, which I’ve always assumed because my watch ran fast.

What a sentence.

I guess it means I’ll start showing up to things five minutes early instead of 6.5 minutes early like I used to.

Hello. I thought I might write a general update of my life. None of this coherent, crafted writing stuff today.

I’m enjoying work. It’s my seventh month and I’m still doing new things and meeting new people. At the moment I’m finishing projects on water quality and contaminated land remediation. I’m also getting more involved in a psychology/behaviour-based safety system for offshore oil platform workers.

I won the Toastmasters humorous speaking competition the other week. I talked about how my mum relieves me of the burden of buying clothes. People tell me that it was an entertaining speech. I think they are being nice. I didn’t get the happy vibe that you get when you make a great speech.

I don’t teach hip hop anymore because the extraworkular commitments were driving me crazy. You know it’s time to stop when something makes you cry. I really miss teaching dancing, though. I keep having visions of great big theatrical numbers stuffed with innovation. I love teaching.

I still dance hip hop. I’ve got five funky routines baking in the oven. The routines include sword choreography, pom poms and afros. No latin, ballroom, street latin or swing at the moment. I hope it’s not a permanent pause.

This is my last semester of Chinese study. By November, I will have wrapped up sixteen years of studying Chinese. I’m not sure what I’ll have to show for it (a Diploma and a 10 point boost in my VCE study score). I’ve got a test this week — which is why I’m blogging right now.

In the next few weeks, my company and university are sending me around to speak to high school kids about environmental engineering. I’m the Environmental Engineering Evangelist. Hallelujah! Praise Sustainability!

Here are the projects that I’m currently working on or am about to start:

• Joining the committee of a national industry group
• Learning to play inline hockey
• Becoming a chartered engineer
• Investigating options to work in a rural office
• Gain training in negotiation and conflict resolution

I think that’s as many irons in the fire as I’ll ever want to have at a time.

See you all next time!

Good golly, I haven’t procrastinated this much since… I dunno.

Uninspired.

I burned holes through one of my favourite tops last week. With an iron, of course.