KEEP IT IN THE PHAMLY

Modern Family is my all-time favourite comedy show. It’s based on a cast of fabulous and funny characters that I relate waaaaay too much to.

Their family tree begins with grumpy Grandpa who’s divorced and remarried to a gorgeously outrageous Porte Rican woman who has a prim and proper young son. Then there's Grandpa’s two kids and their families. The son is one half of the best gay couple I’ve seen on TV even though his partner is played by a straight actor, they're the amazing parents of an adopted Vietnamese daughter. Grandpa’s girl has the ‘traditional' family – loving (and hilariously stupid) husband and three children (two girls and boy) yet they’re probably the most dysfunctional of the three families. The age gaps, cultural differences and shredding of social norms leads to some teary-eyed, tummy-hugging laughs!

Pretty much all Phams and extended Phamly are in interracial relationships. The mixed languages, generations and cultures makes Phamly events very entertaining in real life. Modern Family captures and exaggerates the loving friction perfectly on the show!

Little Sissy Pham and I talk in many a Modern Family quote so if you ever set a play date with us it’s probably best you watch all 3.8 seasons (there’s still a couple of season 4 episodes to air in January 2013) to keep up with our conversations.

Remember when I told you to never let me shave my head again because it will take me two years to grow it out? Well, I did it again and you didn't stop me! At least this time I went the subtle route. You can't see my head tattoo and if I let my hair down I can hide the fact that I'm not a sensible adult.

This hairdo was inspired by Ms. Rihanna, which got me wondering what I'd originally used as hair inspiration for the head tattoo. I racked my brains all month but didn't remember until I watched Resident Evil 4 on TV the other night. It's a sorry excuse for a game-based action movie (save your nerd memories and stop at Resident Evil 3 if you haven't seen the movies yet). But Alice (aka Milla Jovovich - my steady girl-crush) was my original hair inspiration in the first movie! She totes rocked partial shave before it became cool.


These days I prefer the subtle shave so I can choose to look tough or soft because people treat you differently when you have a partially shaved head. They make judgements before even speaking to you. Like my Viet grocer who used to love chatting with me in Vietnamese until I shaved my hair - he stopped the chit-chat and the freebies. Double blow. Or people almost don't hire you because they see an old picture on your blog and think you may have a bad attitude (though if they'd read the blog entry with the head shaved pic, they'd know my head tattoo stands for infinite love).

Lucky for them (and me) they gave me the gig because I helped nail some epic deadlines with a smile on my face and an endless supply of Snickers to keep the team going. I'm not saying y'all should go out and hug a swastika-inked skinhead in case he or she is secretly a candy-giving fairy. All I'm hoping is that you'll give peeps a chance.


Thanks to Richard at Richard & Maisy Hairstyling. New address: Level 4/190 Edward Street (upstairs from Gucci) Brisbane CBD 4000. Text Richard for appointment. Mob: 0438 893 236

My tarot lady was sooooo confused when I told her I'd spent most of 2012 in the public service. A year earlier she'd predicted a work opportunity with a creative company where an older woman who knew of me would become my mentor. Said opportunity came true (thanks Meg if you read this!) but I wasn't ready to jump into another life-consuming creative job (sorry Meg if you read this)! I needed a time out from life to be with Phamly.

As randomness would have it, I ended up working with Meg's husband on the business.qld.gov.au website instead. Small world, yes? It's been a lovely chilled out year but now I'm hungry for creative work again so today I pack up my desk and bid my team farewell.

Here is a letter I wrote to my wonderful workmates. It's actually quite personal now that I read over it but... this is a personal blog and tarot lady says I need to open up more. So hello world - here are my feelings!

(PDAs is an in-joke. They're all suffering through 'performance development agreements' at the moment.)

My morning routine used to involve 20 minutes of blow-drying and 15 minutes of running late. If it were just me, it'd be okay but I commute with Little Sissy Pham and she uses flex time for all her medical appointments. The simpler solution would have been to wake up earlier but that's way too logical for the likes of me.

Instead, I got a new hairdryer from this decade to blast the heck out of my hair. Who knew hairdrying technology could advance so much in 10 years? All this time I thought it was my stubborn, thick Asian hair that refused to let go of moisture. Hairdressers comment every time they try to dry my hair so I'm not all delusional. Only slightly.

But with my spankin' new Remington Studio Styles Ionic Pro Pack I'm sorted in 5 minutes. For $50 it gets the job done well and people have commented how shiny and flowy my hair looks now. Little Sissy Pham finds the placement of the buttons on the handle inconvenient but she's a fussier Pham than me. Which is why when her hairdryer died a couple weeks ago, I bought her a fancy GHD dryer for Christmas! I have an annoying habit of spending much more on other people than I do on myself. It's crap.

Of course, as soon as I got my own new hairdryer, Little Sissy Pham and I started swimming in the evenings so now I shower at nights and don't need to speed-dry my hair in the mornings anymore. Such is life.

I've gone from not wearing patterns and prints to a number of floral and polka dot dresses. For some reason I always thought prints didn't suit me but I've come to realise I look like Mum Pham and she exclusively wore patterns and prints.
I look more and more like Mum Pham as I get older. I’m so much like her I started to worry and asked Little Sissy Pham, 'What if mum's become an evil spirit and is taking over my body?' to which she squealed 'yay!' and I sulked for the rest of the day.

I guess if I were to turn into mum it won't be so bad. After all, Mumma Pham was one stylish lady. These are just some of the many patterned jersey dresses I've bought from ASOS.com recently.

Last year's Harvest was an emotional affair because it was my very last day in Melbourne before moving interstate. This year, I went back for sentimental reasons and ended up having the best ever festival experience of my life. As an ex-music publicist and obsessed fan, I've been to so many music festivals I thought once I quit I’d never go again. Until Harvest.

What makes Harvest stand out? Harvest has eliminated all the bad elements of festival outings and enhanced the good.

The Werribee Park site in Melbourne is so beautiful. No mud, no dust - it's all green grass and flourishing plants in November. Melbourne weather even blessed the festival with two glorious days of sunshine and thanks to the trees, there was plenty of shade to keep my blonde-hair and blue-eyed pals from burning to a crisp.

The food is divine - all gourmet and high quality food stalls. None of the overpriced rubbish that seems to be the norm at most big festivals. I seriously wished Harvest wasn't a one-day festival so I could try more food! There were also art installations and chill spaces around the entire festival which made the experience even more relaxing – though with added kooky fun. It’s not every day I get to sit in a human-sized bird nest to enjoy coffee and waffles.

In its start-up year Harvest queues for drinks and toilets were quite insane but the festival listened to the feedback and this year they had a way more effective drinks system and toilets aplenty. No queues whatsoever. Thanks for caring, Harvest!


All this and I haven't even started gushing about the amazing line-up! The team behind Harvest Festival put together a line-up for genuine music lovers. They're not going for the so-indie-you-don't-know-them-but-pretend-you-do line-up or the so-mainstream-you-don't-like-music-but-you-go-because-it's-fashionable-and-get-blind-drunk-and-pass-out-before-midday crowd.

I explored the festival site with Dandy Warhols as my background music, I got to see my favourite band in the line-up, Liars, front and centre, discovered Mike Patton’s Mondo Cane, stoner rocked with The Black Angels, chilled out to the beautiful sounds of Beirut, had a blast dancing to Beck (my surprise favourite performance of the day – I knew he’d be great but I’m not a Beck fanatic so didn’t expect him to be my festival highlight), stopped by Fuck Buttons for a bit of party-electro but decided the indie experimental Grizzly Bear was a much gentler ease into the atmospheric glory of Sigor Ros. Everyone was top quality.

Thanks Harvest for the most beautiful festival experience I’ve ever had. I’ll see you next year.

Love.

I went back to Melbourne for my first proper visit since moving and enjoyed me some Harvest 2012, Melbourne Aquarium, a real life data centre, Bleeding Knees Club @ the Corner, got a talking-to from tarot lady and did so much catching-up with friends over food I vomited in my mouth from overeating. Twice.

When I left Melbourne last year I wasn't in a great place (read: In loving memory of Mum Pham). I'm glad the general vibe everyone got from me this time is one of a sun-kissed, happy and healthy girl. I feel more me than I have all year.

Seeing my Melbourne friends reminded me how much love and fun and life I still have inside me. It's been too long since I've gotten this type of reaction from my friends:

Tarot lady says in 2013 everything's coming up Milhouse (my interpretation of her words, she didn't actually say that). I believe her because now I've got my  'anything is possible' attitude back, anything really is possible.

I had a trippy night out with my second cousin, Peter, in Melbourne. My mum and his dad hung out when they were young. History continues with us, the two kids who look exactly like our deceased parent. I kept freaking out when he looked at me with his dad's eyes, and he kept wigging out when I pulled a Mum Pham face. It was spooky yet fun.

I'd been waiting half a decade for Peter to turn 18 so I could take him out to gigs, but just as he reached legal partying age I went and moved up to Brisbane. So I set this right on my recent trip to Melbourne by taking him to see Bleeding Knees Club at the Corner Hotel.
Boy, do I thank the rock gods for delivering unto me a skate/surf band who fit a year's worth of rock & roll experiences into one short and sweet set for Peter. Naked guy (pictured), moshing, crowd-surfing, drinking beer out of sneakers and two near knock-outs - all set to the catchy tunes and charming banter of the BKC boys. FUN!

This was Bleeding Knees Club's last tour before they take a time out to write album #2, but next time they're down your way I highly recommend you go see and partay.

Most of the time I think I'm a good Aunty. And then I hear myself speak.

I caught the bus to work the other day. The same bus my eldest niece takes to school. In the space of 5 minutes I'd told her that Little Sissy Pham is an alcoholic (as a joke - the only person more sober than her is me) and that the bus wasn't packed as usual because adults slack off on Fridays (not a joke). These are just two of the multitude of things that spurt from my mouth without my brain's or Little Sissy Pham's approval.

Lucky for my nieces, I'm not their only Aunty option. There's Little Sissy Pham and their mum's sister too. It's okay though, I make up for my personality with material things like these novelty penguin-shaped presents from Melbourne aquarium. Eldest niece got rose-scented hand cream and Middling niece got a waddling, wind-up penguin toy. I didn't get mini-bro anything because she can't understand language so I haven't damaged her outlook on life and don't owe her any quick-fix gifts. Yet.

Check out this awesome(ly nerdy) interactive graphic. It helps put life in perspective and made me realise, my ears aren't so big.

I got an email the other day asking if my blog posts are paid for promotions because I'm so positive about everything. It reminds me of the time Ben Garden from Grafton Primary told me, "I can't figure out if you're a total trash bag or just high on life." (Answer is the latter.) This makes me wonder how many other people find my sheer enthusiasm for life hard to believe.

As a result, I've started an OAQ section on my 'about' page (once asked questions). The short answer is no, I'm not asked to write any of my blogs. Actually, my Phamly sometimes ask me not to write blogs... but, really, they just shouldn't do so much funny shit to spark post ideas.

The longer answer is: I started this blog knowing I'd want it to be positive(ly silly). There's enough negativity on the internet and in the world. Why add more? Ain't nobody got time for that! I avoid making nasty remarks on my blog so I only write about things I genuinely love and recommend.  Whatever I write about I've discovered on my own and bought for myself.

While I can proudly say I've personally selected everything I blog about and none of it comes from external promo requests, it's not totally true to say my opinions are my own. My opinions and all my brain-thoughts are a running stream of pop culture quotes from TV, movies, books, magazines... I don't think I've ever had an original thought in my life.

Arnott's new double choc mud Tim Tams remind of me of a recent Phamly dinner where Little Sissy Pham accidentally put middling-niece off both her dinner and dessert with but a few words.

First on the menu was wonton noodles, which Middling heard as 'one tonne noodles!?!?! Um, I ate already.' Her mum explained it was the yummy noodles with soup that she loves. She enjoyed her dinner after that.

After dinner came chocolate cake with strawberries and whipped cream. Little Sissy Pham told our little prep goer who makes mud pies at school the cake's name to which middling exclaimed "MUD cake?!?!?!" and refused to eat any. It took a lot of coaxing to even get her to try the cake. By try I mean she slowly poked her tongue out and touched an edge with the very tip of her tongue before setting it back down.

Probably didn’t help that it was a gluten-free cake – another failed attempt to help Little Sissy Pham’s terrible case of psoriasis through dietary means as well as the bazillion creams and UV treatments the docs have tried over the past decade. Anyway, the happy ending is I got to eat my cake and Middling’s too.

If I ever turn off my greedy gut to share double choc cake Tim Tams with my niece I'll tell her "it's a yummy chocolate biscuit. I love it, it's my favourite." Because you don’t tell a 6 year old it’s mud. On a serious note, I'm not a Tim Tam fan to begin with but I am obsessed with the double choc mud ones. They smell of delicious mud cake and have soft, muddy chocolate in the middle. So good. You gotta try them – they’re part of the exclusive Sweet Wishes range of Tim Tams and this flavour is only available from Woolworths.

Agent Smith from The Matrix was right. Humans are like a disease to this planet but I'll be damned if he thinks we're not cute when we multiply and spread. Meet the newest germ in my Phamly:


I call her Mini-bro Pham because the poor thing looked awfully like Big Brother Pham when she was first born. Actually, she looked exactly like the baby from Ice Age 1 first, and then when she opened her eyes she looked like my bro.


Then we took her home from hospital and she realised, 'Holy crap... this is what I have to live with?' Though, to be fair, I didn't buy her that onesie - I rightly assume she bought it herself with the baby bonus. Babies get to spend that, right?


When she's old enough to crawl, I'm going to put her in the middle of the hallway and make her pick the Auntie (singular) she really loves. If it's me, I'll cry until my blood vessels burst and spurt blood out of my eyes. If it's Little Sissy Pham, I'll knock my sister out with a baby rattle. Either way, mini-bro is going to have a traumatising life experience 6-9 months from now.

Life with The Phamly won't be all bad. We don't suppress her desire for Tin Tin hair (actually, it's her natural do - nature really is amazing). We took her bowling for her 1 month celebration of life where she drank and sharted.

Psy is in Australia!!! His ‘Gangnam Style’ music clip is my favourite pop music video since Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. The fashion, the colour, the hilarity!

Psy is a massive Korean popstar and I'm moronicly excited that he's crossed over into Western territories (#1 in Australia, US, UK and who knows how many more countries) so noobs like me can attempt his funny dances.

 Also, any artist who freely gives away video copyright to the masses and whose motto is 'Dress fancy, dance cheesy' is a super hero in my eyes. Gosh darn it…. I’m going to have to watch Australian X-Factor to see him live in Oz.

UPDATE 19/10/12: Some of his Aussie highlights have made it onto YouTube.
Getting shiny for Sunrise. Only Psy can pull off a star-spangled sequin suit at that time of the morning. His encore performance gets Aussied up.

This really happened.


Getting a very reluctant Mel B to dance Gangnam Style after his crazy-good live performance on the X-Factor.

LOVE!

Back in her day, Mum Pham would take two hours to get ready for school. She had a beehive bob to build, foundation, eye shadow (always blue-green to balance the birthmark on her eyelid), eyeliner, eyebrow liner, lip liner, lipstick, blush and whatever else it is that women do. She never understood how I could roll out of bed and not bother to brush my sleep-kinked hair before heading to uni.

I didn't wear make-up as in foundation / cover up - whatever you call it until I started working in fashion PR where I learned how to apply make up without it looking like I've used the blur tool in Photoshop to wipe out my facial features. Let me correct that - I still don’t know how to apply liquid foundation, I use mineral make-up for the natural-look.
I've tried two brands so far and I think I've found a brand for life. Sheer Cover is AMAZING. I've had a decade long struggle with acne. Acne is winning but with Sheer Cover you can't tell that because it covers up the blemishes and leaves a natural looking healthy glow that tricks my friends into saying things like, ‘Wow, your skin looks amazing.’ And ‘You’re acne’s totally gone!’

I learned the hard way that the grass may look greener on the other side but it isn’t. I got caught in the promo hype of Nude by Nature mineral make-up so I bought a starter kit to try. Unlike Sheer Cover, it looks like I have powder on my face when I apply it, only thick layers can cover my acne scars and so it doesn't look my natural skin.
With Sheer Cover people always compliment me on my clear skin and instead of thanking them, I tell them I have acne covered by Sheer Cover. Now I'm telling you, it's Sheer Cover! Go, buy, love. I still have some Nude make-up to use up (waste not) then I'm going back to Sheer Cover and I'mma stay with them forever.

My health was on the way up when I purchased a compact treadmill and rearranged my IKEA bedroom to fit it in. Then my new 15" Macbook Pro with retina display arrived and Diablo III happened so my health started to decline.

I've made a new rule that I can't play Diablo until after I've finished a session on the treadmill because I am not clever enough to rig it up like this genius who can only play Diablo III when he's moving on his treadmill. I want to go to there.
My 4 month work contract got extended by 6 months so I needed to do something before desk work turns my inner slob into my outer slob.  I love to walk and used to walk to and from work every day in Melbourne for nearly 2 hours a day. Moving back home to a 40 minute commute sitting on my arse while a car then a train does my work isn't helping with my expanding gut.

So I went on a hunt for a compact treadmill to fit in my crowded room. I found the Confidence Fitness Motorised Treadmill on oo.com.au.  Combined with a pair of 1kg dumbbells (teehee, that's a funny word) my new exercise routine is working a treat!

The machine's fairly quiet except for the way I stomp on it with my pigeon-toed, uneven legs. 97.6% of the human population is more lightfooted than I am though, so the average person would not consider this a loud machine. It's a basic machine - you can only adjust speed, not resistance or slope but it's perfect for speed-walking and light jogging. For your health!

Since moving from inner-city Melbourne (read: party town) to the outer-suburbs of Brisbane (read: sleepy town) I've started to catch up on about five years of TV show recommendations from friends. I thought I'd pass on their great recommendations to you.

Dexter is amazing. I love a show that keeps you guessing because it mindblowing plot twists and brilliant writing. Even though it's about a serial killer, the show isn't gory and doesn't go for cheap scares. In other words, people who need to watch horror movies at home on DVD because they feel stupid bringing their blanket and cat to the cinemas (like me) will have no anxiety attacks watching Dexter. The show is superbly done drama, thriller and action.

You'd think it'd be hard relating to a serial killing lead character but by the end of season 3 I was convinced I should marry a cold-blooded murderer. Seriously, think about it - he'd be the perfect husband because he doesn't want to be discovered and needs a happy family to use as a cover. The only downside would be if he decided it'd be better for him to kill off his family. That could suck.

Be warned: the season 6 cliffhanger is a doozie and will leave you reeling. At least if you watch it now, season 7 will drop at the start of October. My throat seized up and I nearly died (exaggeration) when I realised in June this year that I'd have to wait three whole months for what happens next.

Another warning: season 8 will be the last. They've plotted out the finale over season 7 & 8 and set it up during season 6 so methinks this well planned ending won't disappoint.

Dexter. Watch it!

Sorry it's been a few weeks since I've posted. You know how life sometimes just gets in the way... and by life I mean my life as a kung fu fighting monk in the Diablo 3 world of Sanctuary. Anyhoo, here we go:
I have a thing about generic greeting cards - that thing is: I don't like them. I prefer to pay the extra couple of bucks for a pop-up card or cards with personality or something that makes it that little bit different. After all, if some one deserves a card, they deserve a good card.

I also hate cards that have a generic message inside. I only use blank ones that force you to think about what you want to say to the person that you're going to give the card to. Seriously, take five minutes out of your life to put some thought and sincerity into the gift you're giving.

Or if you don't know what you want to say, buy something like this little gem I found in Australian National Geographic stores. They have snow globe gift cards with a tiny circle where you can just sign your name really big if you can't think of what to write. The joy someone will get from popping up this card is all they need - who cares what you had to say but couldn't!

I'll get off my greeting card high horse now. Please carry on.

Scented stationery probably isn't very grown up but I justify bringing scented pens to work because pens are much more grown up than scented colour and grey lead pencils. Introducing Smens 2.0 - the (slightly more) grown up version of the original Smencils.

For a little while these babies were only available in bulk (sets of 500 for fundraisers....ok, primary school fundraisers) and they finally became available in sets of 5 (one of each scent) a few weeks back. I got a couple of packs for my current work team because they're awesome writers who deserve nice stationery...ok, we're web editors and we don't really use pens but I needed an excuse to buy and smell the new range.

Smens 2.0 come in mocha, wild berry, cinnamon (my fave), creamsicle and passion fruit. I'm sorry to say the scents aren't as delicious as the pencils. They also won't age as well as smencils, which unleash a fresh layer of scent after every sharpening. I probably won't get another set of pens (unless they release Smens 3.0 with longer lasting scents).

If you're looking for an environmentally friendly scented black ink pen then Smens 2.0 is the way to go. They are made from 100% recycled plastic and newspaper - even the individual tubes they come packaged in are made from biodegradable plastic.

Smens say it best: "Helping the planet, one pen at a time."

I'm training my nieces to like me through positive association with food, but they're not always hungry so I sometimes use cute, fuzzy animals instead. That's the main reason we went to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary on Anzac Day this year in Fig Tree Pocket (Brisbane southside).

We saw the sheep dog show and fed lorikeets but the ultimate experience was feeding the kangaroos! Sure, koalas are cute and I'm glad they've got a sanctuary in Brisbane. But koalas are always sleepy little nuggets because it's so goddamn draining to digest eucalyptus leaves - they just lounge around looking dopey. People-friendly kangaroos, however, hop around eating food out of your hand!

Big Brother Pham went and got his hand pecked open by birds because he tried to feed them too. Sometimes I worry that half my nieces' genes come from his side of the Phamly. Here's hoping their mum comes from a self-preserving breed of human. That's her in the background of the photo by the way, with Baby Pham #3 in her belly!!

P.S. Don't judge Lone Pine by their website - the sanctuary is a much more beautiful place to visit than their verdana-loving white text on black background website: koala.net. Also, they have a photo of Jackie Chan holding a koala on their site. That earns 'em some good web karma points.

Since my current work contract got extended to the end of this year, I've been on a bit of a spending spree to celebrate continued income and consumerism. To be fair, I ordered the new 15" Macbook Pro with Retina Display when I thought I was going to join the unemployment line with all the other Queensland Government temp staff who lost their jobs on June 29th and wanted to spend 1 hour a day looking for work and the other 17 waking hours playing Diablo III.

Let's see... in the space of two weeks after learning the good news, I bought a compact treadmill, Karen Walker sunglasses, serviced Luigi, got me some new dresses, tops, shoes. Oh, and hundreds of dollars worth of baby things for Baby Pham to be. Most of those purchases are common (read: you won't care) but I did find something awesome that I have to share with you: the Columbia River Knife & Tool iNoxcase for iPhone 4/s.
Industrial designer Ryan Glasgow develops movable, modular houses and prosthetic hands in his spare time so I'm glad he thinks awesome iPhone and iPad cases are also ways to improve the quality of (my) life. While I really wanted the iNoxcase 360, which is much more self-photo friendly, I couldn't sacrifice the rainbow stainless steel finish that only comes in the 180. Who wants to see my face when they can look at the rainbow case anyway! Now that my phone is heavily protected from world, I need to figure out how I'm going to protect everything in my bag from my phone. My best idea so far is bubble wrap... I need more ideas.

I gotta keep this short and sweet for two reasons. Diablo III is downloading in the background and as soon as it's installed I will disappear into a gaming vortex and will emerge several weeks later looking like a disheveled vampire (picture yourself after 28 hour flight/travel then times that by four). Also, I have to try and pre-write as many blog posts as I can so Keep It In The Phamly doesn't fall victim to the Hell overlord.

The story of how I got the name jadestopthat is short and sweet. Well, it's not very sweet but it is short.

I went on tour with a band years ago to make a documentary (and website) to ace a university project. One of the guys got very sick of me pointing the camera in his face and he regularly told me so. From hours of footage I cut together a sequence where he says, "Jade, stop that. Jade, stop that. Jade, stop that. Stop it. Stop that. Jade, come on, stop that. Stop that! That's it, Jade, get out." It actually went on for a lot longer than that but I promised this story was short so I've edited it for your reading pleasure.

And that's all I have to say about @jadestopthat.

Once there was a very dark (wardrobe) time in my life when I favoured black clothing, black hair, black underwear, black bras, black nail varnish and black socks. No, I was not emo nor Goth nor punk. I had just moved out of home and didn't know how to get food stains out of my washing, which sucked for two reasons - I love food, what a waste to have it on my clothes instead of in my gut; I love bright colour, what a shame food stained clothes aren't fashionable. So I never wore white and if I wore colours, they were dark and camouflaged specks of spaghetti sauce, curry or lipstick smears.

Life was like that for the first six months of independent life. Then I moved into a warehouse with 9 other boys and soon enough all my black socks migrated into the boys' wardrobes. And I guess this is where my adventures with coloured apparel, laundry techniques and increased food to mouth ratios began.

At first buying bright patterned socks that no one in their right mind would wear (pop colour wasn't fashionable five years ago, you know) was a way to keep my socks separate. Then as time went on and I moved into other sharehouses with a third of that population I kept up the colourful socks. My current set of ankle socks (don't like the shin-high socks, over my phase of knee socks) is the fluoro solid colours and white with fluoro stripes from Big W.

I love it when I make a wish and some one (usually a nerd) grants it. Vodafone's mobile network experience helped me master the art of frowning during its 2010 vodafail year. Resetting a phone every hour to receive texts (usually about calling people back because their call wouldn't connect) helped me to overcome my pro-tightass ways and switch over to Telstra's mobile phone network.

Telstra is a dream. I pay $20-40 more a month for similar caps to Optus, Virgin and Vodafone but I consider it an investment in preventing stress and acne breakouts.  I haven't had any connection issues whatsover in the 13 months I've been with Telstra. The only minor downside is I have to pay for international texts. That is why I love WhatsApp so much.

WhatsApp is an alternative for SMS that uses internet to send messages (text, pics and videos). It costs $0.99 (the cost of two international texts on my phone contract) in Australia and now I get to stay in touch with traveling friends who also have the app on their smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows - this app doesn't discriminate) .

Who wouldn't want to receive a video of my cat while they're overseas? Probably everyone so just humour me and watch Tigger Pham loving life.

I can't tell whether I go cross-eyed when I look at the camera because I'm Asian or because I am actually a little cross-eyed. Non-Asians don't seem to have this trouble - or maybe they do and they simply don't post these photos on the Internet.

I like my eyes despite their design flaw so I highlight them most mornings (dependent on mood, sleepiness or lateness) with my favourite Maybelline gel eyeliner. I've been using it for a good year and my jar is not even half empty. True, I didn't put on eyeliner while I was moving between states and job hunting for about 4-5 months. Still, I used to crunch through about four or five eyeliner pencils a year so one jar that costs almost the same as one pencil but lasts all year is an absolute bargain if you ask me!

The gel stays put all day long too - I don't need to touch up my eyes if I go out after work. It doesn't smudge or scatter the way pencils do. The brush is also very precise and you don't need to sharpen it like pencils. Maybe touching up and wastage accounts for the big gap between how long a jar lasts compared to zee inferior pencil.