Happy Birthday - Pamela

Happy, Happy Birthday to the oh-so bubbly, Pamela! Hope you have a fantastic day... eat, drink, be merry.

Happy Birthday - Johanna

A happy birthday to the one and only Ms. Johanna Darilek!! Yeeeehaaaaw (my cowboy impersonation!!)!!! Have a wonderful day, darlin'!

Happiness is...

... a poolside in Phuket. After the chaos of Bangkok, Phuket - which was supposed to be our adventure destination - was pure bliss! We were situated on the quiet side - close to Chalong Bay and far from the fast-paced, neon-glam of Patong Beach. So instead of adventuring as was our intention (we were going to go from fast to slow... it didn't quite work out that way), we found ourselves lounging beside the pool every day!! The Vighit Resort was by far our best accommodation. We shared bungalows. Beautiful bungalows. I would have moved in and taken up permanent resident if only they'd let me!
Christmas Eve saw Joel and me opting to join the Vighit Resort Christmas Party and the ladies heading out for a night on the town - uh Phuket Town that is (you'll have to check out their blogs for what went down that night). Joel and I ate a lot and mingled with old people and young children and snooty young couples! Then the band who were fairly okay, started up a competition - the prizes being wine (for adults) and stuffed toys(for the kids)!! The first one was some weird stop/start dancing competition (stop dancing when the music stops)... Joel and I were competing with some of the old folks and loads of kids! Joel was eliminated somewhere in the middle - but I was effing DETERMINED to win that bottle of wine, man... until I found myself in the final two - competing with an earnest little blonde child, who was dancing her heart out. She must've been like five!! Now even I didn't have the heart to take the kid out (believe me I COULD have) - so I conceded the round (to Joel's disgust - never realised how bloodthirsty he could be). But we were given a second chance in the form of musical chairs - which no frikking KIDS were allowed to play! HAH!!! So soon enough - the old folks and Joel were eliminated and I found myself in the final two again! With yet ANOTHER skinny little blonde chick, this one slightly older than the five year old! It went down to the wire with me CLEARLY winning the round when I sat down first, but Chick sat down too... my ARSE was clearly taking up a greater portion of the chair, but the musicians felt there should be a replay (the bastards) - so the next time, I made damned well SURE they knew who the winner was! Never worked that hard for a bottle of wine before! But I was determined we would have it for our Christmas dinner the next day! HAH!

Uh... okay... enough of that! I know you're all just here for the pictures.

A Hillside Bungalow

Sunrise - the view from the restaurant

pineapple shake (yum)

Drama queen

Bleh

Treezilla and the crew

Lounging

The Spoils of WAR!!!

Christmas Day

Christmas Dinner

The countdown begins to...

13/03/07!!!!!

I'm so happy... happyhappyhappy! Happier'n a pig in sheeeyut! Now if only I knew where the hell I could watch it in Japan (damn it)!

Here's the lowdown on the teams! Cos I KNOW y'all wanna KNOW!!

Group A - Base: St. Kitts and Nevis

Australia
Ranked 1 in the world (sighhhhhh). Defending champions... I hope they get their ARSES kicked in this World Cup!

South Africa
Ranked 2 in the world! They are notorious Big Match chokers! They have disappointed themselves, their fans and most importantly, ME, consistently at every world cup since their re-admittance back into the world arena! The notable exception being 1992 - when they shocked everybody by NOT SUCKING after years and years of isolation! Hopefully, after winning the Greatest ODI Match Ever Played in the History of the sport, they will have put the choker reputation behind them! We'll see...

Scotland
Ranked ?? Just enjoy the beaches lads...

The Netherlands
Ranked ?? The poor things, they do try very hard every time. Good for them

Group B - Base Trinidad and Tobago
Sri Lanka
Ranked 6 in the world. World Cup Champions in 1996 - 11 years later do they have what it takes to reclaim the cup?! I sincerely hope not...
India
Ranked 5 in the world! Their supporters are fanatical about the sport! But will it be their year?! They just lost an OD International Series (4-0!!!) in SA, so things aren't looking too bright for them right now.

Bangladesh
Ranked ??? Well, it's not only about winning... it's also about playing the game... I'm sure that thought will keep them warm and fuzzy after the competition draws to an end for them! And they may even win a match against Bermuda.

Bermuda
Ranked ?? Hmmm... like Scotland and Ireland, this team's a novice, will be interesting to watch though!

Group C - Base: Saint Lucia
New Zealand Ranked 3 in the world. Always a good looking team, that Daniel Vettori for in example (drooool)... but uh, yes - I think they could surprise us with a jolly good showing chaps!

England Ranked 8 in the world! I find they tend to suck at cricket (well the one day version anyway! They DID get those Ashes back from the Aussies recently! But that's a different kettle of fish entirely) and am not expecting them to progress further than the quarter finals (hope Hiten doesn't read my blog, else I'll get lynched for that)

Kenya
Ranked 11 in the world. They're definitely getting better, but not good enough to compete with the big boys! With the Kiwis and England in their group, I don't really see them progressing beyond the round robin matches.

Canada Ranked ?? Oh well they may be able to beat Kenya if they try really, REALLY hard!

Group D - Base: Jamaica

Pakistan Ranked 4 in the world! ALWAYS a big contender! Some fine looking players too (yum)!

The W.Indies Ranked 7 in the world! Home ground advantage. They could go far if not all the way!

Zimbabwe Ranked 10 in the world. Not usually strong contenders.

Ireland
Ranked ?? Uh... well... nice of them to join us. I'm sure they'll all get really nice tans!

Initial predictions: all of those teams with questions marks next to rank will NOT make it into the next round! Then again, it IS a World Cup and weird things have been known to happen! Well there you have it! Not quite the footie world cup, but it's a HUGE deal to me. So I'll be pfaffing on about it every so often!

Mwah

N

Queen - Love of My Life

"Love of my life you've hurt me
You've broken my heart and now you leave me
Love of my life can't you see?
Bring it back, bring it back
don't take it away from me
because you don't know, what it means to me.
Love of my life don't leave me.
You've stolen my love, you now desert me.
Love of my life can't you see?
Bring it back, bring it back
don't take it away from me
because you don't know, what it means to me.
You will remember when this is blown over
and everything's all by the way
when I grow older, I will be there at your side to remind you.
How I still love you. I still love you.
Back. Hurry back. Hurry back.
Don't take it away from me.
Because you don't know...
what it means to me.
Love of my life. Love of my life.
Oooooh yeah."

Sighhhhhhhh. I found this on youtube! So nostalgic now. One of my favourite Queen songs and it was always the best one at their concerts because of the audience participation. Try to find to Rio version of it! What a treat, Freddy sings about one verse of the song, the rest is all audience!
Amazing.

Bangkok - BC*

Too lazy to open up my online album, are ya?! Never fear... I anticipated such laziness from you lot, so I will break the trip down into segments for your reading pleasure! Bangkok was hot, dirty, smoggy, frenetic, scary, exciting, noisy and a shopper's paradise all rolled into one, dynamic package! We spent our first two days in Thailand, muddling our way up and down the fantastic Khao San Road... we got waxed (hell OW), manicured, pedicured, massaged and measured for tailor made clothing! We ate like kings and drank... well only sparingly, to be honest. It was great... but needless to say we were dead keen to get out of there and hit the beaches...







* Before chickens

Thailand...

... was BRILLIANT!! Mao, chickens, blue cocktails and celebrating 700S... what more could anyone have asked for!?

Have a look at the pics if you don't believe me! I've added the album to my sidebar. All pics are in chronological order.

Mwah

N

Happy New Year m'dahlings

Can I get a chirpy l'il "hell YEAH!" from all y'all who are happy to be back at work today?!
...
...
...
...
...
... didn't think so.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, enjoy your festive season and all that!!

From a South African in Japan (soon to be headed out to Thailand!! Wheeeeeeee!!). Stay safe this holiday. Happy travels to those of you leaving the country. Enjoy the snow to those of you staying. And to those of you back home, South Africa always rocks this time of year, so I KNOW you'll all be having a great time!

Love ya all!!

Natasha

(Image by Mary Coombes! A cute Christmas card she made and sent to me! Santa hanging ten in Souf Efrica)

Jaws

Now as many of you know, I absolutely love great white sharks!! So I was absolutely thrilled to get this little stuffed toy from Mary C back in SA!! Check out those teeth (lmao - they look like dentures don't they?!)... isn't it the cutest thing ever?!!
Thanks Mary, m'angel!

Love ya lots!

Putting my songwriting skills to the test

(Dedicated to my co-travellers: Johanna, Ros, Joel and Angela)
In honour of the recent snow, I have re-written the following ditty to suit my mood (sung to the tune of Let it snow!):

Oh the weather outside is frightful
and nothing about it's delightful
and I really wish I could just go
I hate snow! I hate snow! I hate snow!

It doesn't show signs of stopping
Yes the temp'rature's stead'ly dropping
And I'm feeling kinda low
I hate snow! I hate snow! I hate snow!

When I finally catch my flight
How I'll love gett'ng 'way from the storm!
And my heart will fill with delight
When I'm in a bikini and oh-so warm

Oh how I look f'ward to flying
all the way out to Thailand
and I can hardly wait to go
For I hate snow! I hate snow! I hate snow!!!

There ya go... from me to you!

Hugs

Natasha

Watch out for the pesky norovirus

It's rife in our schools... So I've written the following advisory in the interests of Public Health (no applause necessary):

Symptoms include:

diarrhea
vomiting
fever
and an all-round feeling of ickiness!

Preventative Measures

Stay away from students. They're crawling with germs. Avoid them at all costs!!!!!
If you cannot avoid contact with students, be sure to wear a biohazard suit, mask and gloves.
If you have no access to the aforementioned, scrub yourself thoroughly with a bristle brush (the type used to clean floors) and industrial strength soap.
If you find yourself unable to lay your hands on industrial strength soap, use Dove, Lux or whatever just for GOD'S SAKE, be sure it's real soap!!! Those alcohol wipey things don't work!
If you have no way of obtaining soap, you're a dirty bastard and deserve to puke your guts up!
Oh and try not to touch door handles, pens, pencils, desks, chairs, etc etc

If you some reason the preventative measures don't work:

Stay indoors
Lock your doors
Close your curtains and be damned sure you don't give it to the rest of us!

That said: hasn't the weather been fucked up lately?! Dude, the other day I saw a daddy long legs, just yesterday I saw a ladybug and today I notice buds on one of the trees outside of my school! This global warming thing is really taking effect now, huh?!

Cheerio

N

The ribbon says it all...

World AIDS Day

Someone up there hates me...

...and it's God, I tell ya! God! Why else would it RAIN on me every single day while I valiantly battle my way to school on a bicycle (and then - rubbing salt in the wound - it stops seconds after I get indoors! Leaving me soaked to the bone and FUMING!!)?! Okay, maybe it's not God... but it's someone pretty close to him... his evil henchwoman, Mother Nature perhaps?! She's got PMS and she's taking it out on ME!!! This puts me in a terribly grim mood!

Bring on the snow, at least then I can walk everywhere and not get soaked (I'll slip and fall a lot... and probably blame God or Mother Nature for that too... but then I am a natural whinger! Surely, you must have picked up on that by now?)!!!

Rain sucks...

The end.

Bento

Hah!! Am sooooooo proud of myself because I've FINALLY gone and made my very own bento... looks really Japanese, doesn't it?! I've even gone and bought a complete lunch box set (okay from the Y100 shop), with a little baggie and everything!! Oooh and matching chopsticks!! I'm just turning Japanese, aren't I?! Note the little cherry tomatoes, I added them in as a little in-joke to myself...

A new Fidel pic

From Nathan... Ag hene man!!! Sooooooo oulik...

My fave pics of the week

A karaoke fave of mine - for obvious reasons!

Johannesburg, South Africa - torrential summer rains strike again!!!

No guts

I'm seriously shit scared of having my impacted wisdom tooth removed over here! I've been kind of lacking in the backbone area for the last year or so and I pay for it everytime it gets infected! Am in major pain over here and so not even considering the option of going to the dentist!

I mean, come on, this is the same country where they wanted to stick a whiplike, camera thingie down my nostril just to confirm whether or not I had a throat infection! And no way would I even think about going to the dentist for a surgical procedure in a country where they have a tendency to give you the mildest type of medication for most ailments! I really have these dire visions of having my tooth removed with only a mild aspirin for pain relief. Sorry, but my faith was tested after the nasal probe business and then completely shattered with the rash of misdiagnosed malaria incidents we had over the last year and a half!

So now here I sit, with a swollen right cheek, a jaw that's painful to the touch, an aching ear, difficulty eating (yayyyyy good for the diet) and a terrible headache, all as a result of this stupid impacted wisdom tooth. Siiiiighhhhhh! I take solace in the fact that the infections never last.

More M&E

It's fabulous that we now have a South Africa in which the kids don't know what the f#ck Apartheid is!