Another Year!

I do not make public New Year's resolutions. I make private promises to myself. This year, I'm going public.

A friend informed me that a former boss "found" my piece in Growing Up Asian in Australia, so she directed him (with my permission) to this blog.

(Hi - you know who you are Former Boss - if you're reading this now. No need to say 'hi' back...)

I spent some hours re-reading past posts and am a little saddened that so many of my earlier posts read so much better than my recent posts. They seem more thoughtful, more insightful, more thinking (which I think is different to thoughtful). I need to re-capture them.

So that's Resolution Number One: Write More and Write Better
(Although I'll be happy with the 'more' bit and will leave the 'better' bit to fall into place. If there's a lot of chaff, eventually there's wheat, right?)

I've not really got off to a good start, but I'm a battler and I ain't giving up.

Resolution Number Two is a bit mundane: Sleep at Regular Times on a Weeknight.

Which leads nicely to Resolution Number Three: Arrive at Work around 8.30am.

I've been doing very poorly on both these fronts but that's gonna change, I swear.

Resolution Number Four: this year, REALLY, is the year I Wear Contact Lenses. This has been my New Year's resolution (even though I say I don't make them, I LIE) for the last, hmm, 5 years or thereabouts. Seriously, 2009 is the year. I'll update you on that one.

chuc mung nam moi, friends.

Home, again. And again.

The word home is so imprecise. Rather like the word love, I guess.

Questions I was frequently asked when in BrisVegas:

1. Is it good to be home again?
2. How long are you home for?
3. When do you head home?
4. When are you coming home for good?

1, 2 and 4 all refer to Brisbane as home. 3 refers to England.

I caught up with some people who did not know I was no longer living in Brisbane, and my typical convolutions (in response to "What are you doing at the moment?"):

"I'm in the UK - well, obviously not right now. Right now, I'm sweating like nothing else, but in general, I've been living in the UK for the last few years and lawyering."

And that's what I did for two solid weeks. Sweated like nothing else and spun stories about my life in the UK, my life as a lawyer and my life as a merry holiday maker. After a while, I bored myself (and possibly my listeners). I also ate. My goodness, did I ever EAT.

At home (with my family), I had goi cuon, pho, bun nuouc leo and banh xeo. Goi cuon was my hello meal and banh xeo was my goodby meal.

Some of the places I visited were a disappointment. Kabuki, at Stamford Plaza in the city, loses my vote. As does Espressohead in West End. Keeping my vote are Batavia in South Bank and Happy Days in West End. And my brother, mother and sister-in-law all still have my votes, too.

Since coming back home from back home I have been busy with work, Christmas client lunches, work, Christmas itself, laundry and then, um, work. So this is a bit of a pathetic nothing of a post to round off 2008. I thought about writing about my Christmas day (fire! We had a FIRE! And we roasted chestnuts over our open FIRE!) but I don't have time. And I think all my Christmas day photos (rather surprisingly) have people who look recognisably like themselves in, and you can't have a Christmas day post without photographs. But mostly, time is my problem.

I'm hoping 2009 will bring more writing - either on this blog or elsewhere. (Ominous, no?)

Happy New Year to all (four!) of you.

Daylight Savings

On Sunday I woke unsure of the time. We had guests coming 'round for lunch and most of it was ready: a big pot of pho had been bubbling away all day Saturday. My partner had woken earlier than me as I could hear him downstairs. I walked to the bathroom and switched on the light. A spark shot out, and then all went dark. To let in light, I opened some blinds and performed my morning ablutions in a grey dimness.

Later, as I pottered in the kitchen making breakfast, my partner wandered in. I told him about the bathroom light blowing, and asked him to switch on the kitchen light for me, as not much sunlight was seeping in this overcast autumn morning. He did and nothing happened. He wandered into the living room to switch on the living room light, and nothing happened there either.

We had to switch off all electricity to fix the fuse, and then resumed our lazy lunch preparations. I needed to reset the timer on our cooker, because, for some unfathomable reason, it refuses to work unless the time is set.

As I sat on the cold kitchen tiles, mobile phone in one hand, cooker manual spread out on the floor, I realised I have a tenuous grasp on time. Were we going one hour backwards or forwards? Did I have more time or less? What time was it now, anyway, other than shortly-after-breakfast? I wondered whether our guests would arrive on daylight savings time or GMT. I wondered whether we would have time to make dessert. Had I failed to husband my time correctly to take account of dessert?

It was all too much and I retired to the sofa for a wee lie down. We re-jigged our plans and decided to make brownies for dessert: fast, easy and a perennial favourite.

The idea of time, like the idea of money, is mostly arbitrary, theoretical. It is what it is because we say it is what it is. Out there, there is a credit crunch, but I don't really know what that means. In my life, there is a time crunch.

Thoughts of Cycling in the Fall

Summer is gone.

I sat in my office today, my poor katoosh frozen. Our central heating is yet to be turned on, even though temperatures outside are less than 10 degrees. I can barely feel my fingers and I certainly cannot feel my toes.

Autumn is here.

My cycle to work now involves the sunlight glaring in my eyes, occassionally through mist. There are just as many cyclists now as there were in summer, but more of them are brand new (uni) students, taking up the whole of MY cycle path.

I grumble, grouch and ding-ding my bell, to no avail. Especially the young women: they hold their position as they come towards me, archly ignoring my presence in front of them. I'm on the left. You're on the right. We are about to have a collision if you don't move. Sometimes I jump onto the grass, and they give me a surprised innocent look, and I hate them quietly. Sometimes, I peddle onwards, aggressively bowing my head like a bull ready to charge, and wait for them to skid sideways, making affronted noises and giving me upset glares. I'm in the right, sweety, and I have years of practise in judgemental self-righteousness on my side.

Really, I am quite a considerate cyclist. Honest. I cycle kindly with pedestrians, rarely dinging my bell; more often, just calling out or taking a wide detour, especially around dogs and children, for whom I slow down to near-walking pace. I'm less nice to the 'Boot Camp' groups who inexplicably drop onto the middle of the path to do sit-ups and push-ups, or start running backwards without looking behind them. To them, I ding-ding away. I glare at their instructor, dressed in camo gear. I want to shout to the participants: Buy a bike, guys! Why are you paying these sadistic, demi-military men to shout abuse at you? Cycle to work - it's actually rather fun!

I cycle defensively with cars and only aggressive, dangerous drivers cause me to display my anger, by means of rude gestures or shouted obscenities. I have tapped on a car window, after the driver sped up to use the left lane to overtake me who was coasting down the middle of the right lane, set to do a right turn. They had to stop at the light, so I tapped-tapped on their window and said, "That was dangerous and stupid", and to which their reply was a sheepish look. Usually, though, I just swallow my annoyance or think mean thoughts, but do nothing. A car is lots-of-tonnes of metal, and a bike is not. If you're going to be aggressive and dangerous, I'd rather let you then hold my own and be dead or injured, because that's not really that much fun. And anyway, it will make me even later for work than I already am.

But I really have no patience for inconsiderate cyclists. None at all.

I can't wait until winter, when only the committed cyclists will still be peddling away. These rubbish cyclists, with no sense of cylcing etiquette, will have wimped their way onto buses to get to uni. The cycle path will be mine, all mine. [herein insert maniacal cackle.]

Head Hunted

Work etc has been rather busy. Life etc has been rather busy. I am not holding up my own on the blogging front. But, winter draws near. There is hope.

***

I recently answered a head-hunting phone call: very intriguing.

Head-Hunter told me that someone had referred me to them - except the job they are recruiting for works from the corporate perspective and I am quite happily entrenched in the individual's perspective. They won't tell me who the referring someone is. And I'm curious. Very curious. Although I also wonder if they just look up people of my number of years "post qualification experience" (PQE) and then phone up. It's brave of them. Lucky I was feeling patient.

I've never been head-hunted before. It's an odd feeling.

Other odd phone calls I have received recently (these ones at home, rather than at work):

Oddity number 1
Phone rings.
Me:- Hello?
Ambulance Chaser:- Hi! Have you or anyone in your family had an accident in the last three years.
Me: No.
Ambulance Chaser:- Are you sure? Because we can -
Me: Yes. I'm sure.
Ambulance Chaser:- Oh okay. It's just that we -
Me: Thank you. Bye.

Oddity number 2
Phone rings.
Me: Hello?
Opportunist: Hi! We were wondering if, in the current economic climate, you needed assistance.
Me: Sorry?
Opportunist: Well, the current economic climate is not good for the average person.* We were wondering if you might need any help.
Me: Help? Um. No. Thanks.
Opportunist: Debt! Do you have debt?
Me: No.
Opportunist: Mortgage, loans, credit card debt?
Me: No.
Opportunist: Car loan? Home loan?
Me: No.
Opportunist: Really? No credit card debt? We could help you by -
Me: No. I have no debts.
Opportunist: Oh-kaay. [disbelievingly] Thanks anyway.
Me: No problems. Bye.

Weirdos.

*I don't think I qualify as the average person. Or do I? I don't know.

Manga Me

By way of Galaxy, I have Faced My Manga Self:


Yes, I really do grin like that. I have many photographs to prove it. I hacked off all my hair, so now it does do random jagged things. And my glasses are orange.

The most amusing thing about doing this little avatar thing was that I had to go look in the mirror to remind me of what I looked like. Although my hair is black, I decided making it shiny grey was more suited to my personality.

Then I thought, well, that's casual Oanh. But what about Lawyer Oanh? So I went back and made another avatar (but I forgot to give myself a mole, although now I have bags under my eyes and I'm not grinning quite so maniacally):


And that's what I look like at work. My hair's a bit neater, see, and I wear jackets.

The Joys of Blogging

Subtitle: What's with twinkies?

A few months ago, Wandering Chopsticks suggested a food swap. What a brilliant idea, thought I with full enthusiasm. So I started collecting her goodies for her, and she for me. When she asked what I wanted from the US of A, I was a little bemused. Nothing, really. I have discovered that I am a hideously incurious person. This surprises me, because I think I have a lot of intellectual curiousity. I just don't have any need to see or taste or experience particular things. If they come my way, I will investigate them with all the curiousity and abounding enthusiasm (quite a lot) I have, but if you want to know what I have been dying to try, or see, or experience? I don't know. I'm just not really like that. In addition, I have never been to the US, so I do not know what it has, that I cannot get in the UK or Australia. Oh, except for groovy t-shirts without exorbitant postage costs. But I tangentalise.

This is what the wonderful Wandering Chopsticks sent me, and which arrived shortly before my holiday:-

I have been working my way through the box of goodies. Clockwise from the lychee jellies, we have Fudge Shop Grasshoppers, Brussels Cookies, butterfingers, lemongrass, Nestle Crunch, Twinkies, gunpowder green tea and curry powder so I can make some ca ri ga. Somewhere in there too are some loofah seeds. And what's the blue thing drapped over the Brussels Cookies? Read on, read on...

The first thing I chose to eat was the only thing I asked for: twinkies.

My curiousity about twinkies has two origins. The first (not in time) is from an episode of (I think) The Family Guy, in which an apocalyptic event wipes out the world and the family of The Family Guy live on in a twinkie factory; twinkies obviously being impervious to apocalypse.

The second is my awareness of "twinkie" as a perjorative for people of colour. I was so much more aware of racial issues in US and UK culture that I knew the insult "twinkie" and "coconut", before I knew the insult "banana". And if you're not in the know, the common thing about all the above is that they are white on the inside.

The first time I heard the term, "banana" was when a friend in university, laughingly said to me, "Bet you're such a banana you don't even know what one is." Because I did not know what one was, I could have no feeling except perplexity about her comment. My bemused look was enough for her, still laughing, she explained, "Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I'm one of your few Asian friends, you know."

I think about these terms every now and then. And you know what? I can't get worked up about it anymore. The terms just make me roll my eyes, either actually or figuratively (depends where I am).

Still, I'd never eaten a twinkie, and I have eaten plenty of bananas and coconuts. And I want to taste the thing impervious to apocalypse. Maybe it will make me impervious, too?

There was another good reason for trying the twinkie first: it was pretty squished on arrival. Clearly, cross-Atlantic travel does not suit a twinkie.

I have this to say about twinkies: ugh. No thank you! Awful airy sponge thing on the outside, terrible tasteless but too sweet "cream" on the inside. I could not finish one. (Sorry, Wandering, for the waste.)

I have also scoffed all the lychee jelly things. I miss them from Australia. My mother used to have loads in her cupboard for the kids (and me) and we'd just randomly pull one out, tear off the foil top and squeeze into our mouths. It's not the sort of thing I have in my own household, but I devour it when I find it in someone else's.

The other things are still waiting to be eaten. I have to eat my sweet things in short bursts.

The curry powder has found its home on my overflowing, disorganised spice shelf, and has already successfully fed my friends, who loved ca ri ga. Thank you, WC for the curry powder and the recipe! I did ask for the curry powder, but it doesn't count as American food (per me).

And the blue things? I had told Wandering Chopsticks that I was off to Sweden. So she knitted another beanie and scarf for "her Iron Boy". My partner and I took her directions and went looking for him in Stockholm's Gamla Stan (old town). We did have some trouble, not because WC's directions were poor, but because, well, all the buildings were the same colour, they all looked like grand churches (except the one that looked like a grand palace) and they all seemed to have courtyards.

But we found him:

Wandering Chopsticks writes about what I sent her ...

Bullets prior to a Holiday

• I am off on holiday very shortly.

• Holidays are supposed to be wonderful and relaxing. The lead-up to holidays, however, suck. I am trying to make sure all my files are in order and that anything that has a deadline while I am away is dealt with, and anything with a deadline shortly after I return is dealt with. This has led to later nights than I wanting to be working and general short-tempered-ness, and indirectly, stress about not being sufficiently prepared for my holiday.

• Last night, I was still at the office late, trying to take care of some personal things. My boss poked his head through my door and said, "Ah, you are still here? I thought I could hear you charging around." That's me, I charge about the place. I am a small person, but I move like an elephant. There are about five steps between the office where the printer is and mine, and I leap up the steps when heading to the printer, and I galumph back down them again, sometimes leaping all of them without bothering to ascend gracefully or quietly. Especially when I think I am still the only person left at work.

• I have been watching rather a lot of Jane Austen. I find it really intriguing that, now I am familiar with the English landscape, I recognise the cleverness and the interaction of Jane's characters with their landscape, and how the landscape informs who they are and what they do. Many of Jane's heroines love the outdoors - Lizzie Bennets goes for long walks, Marianne Dashwood stands on cliff edges looking out to sea off the wild Dorset Coast, Bath is a foil for a lot of folly. And now, I've been to these places. I have a friend living in the Peak District (where Mr Darcy's house is), and he visited the house where the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice set Mr Darcy's house. "Ooh! You visited Pemberley!" cried me. "No, I visited Chatsworth, but that's where it was filmed." "You visited Pemberley," I insisted. A look passed between my partner and the friend. A look that from my partner was, "Leave her be, take it no further, just back down," and from the friend, "um, er, um."

• I have watched Jane Austen on DVD (Persuasion and Becoming Jane - not quite JA, but pretty darn near to it) and on YouTube - Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility (YouTube versions were BBC Masterpiece series). I find very amusing that, although obvious breaches of copyright, many of the video-posters have a little note saying "No breach of copyright intended." That's not going to help. I don't help, either, by watching.

• Charging about the place is not moving like a Jane Austen heroine. Luckily, as much as I enjoy Jane Austen (Persuasion is my favourite, if you're wondering), I have never wanted to be a Jane Austen heroine. Nope, not even Lizzie Bennet.

• I'm off on holiday now. See you in a few weeks.

Growing Up Asian in Australia - the Book!

Last week, I cycled to the post office to pick up a parcel: a collection of stories, of which my Conversations with My Parents, is one.

The collection is called "Growing Up Asian in Australia", edited by Alice Pung and published by Black Inc. Books.

When I opened the parcel, and saw the book, I wanted to ride home immediately to start reading it. Instead, I had to ride to work and start work. I was bursting with impatient excitement for lunchtime, but I did not know where to go for lunch. If, as would usually be the case, I had a sandwich, I could just head to the Common and read my book on a park bench. Sadly, I needed to buy something to eat, so I decided to go 'next door'. I did not want to go any further afield, because that would reduce the amount of time I had to read my book. The main problem with having lunch next door, is that other work people are next door. I did not want to talk to anyone.

Luckily, no one I was actually friendly with was next door, and all I had to do was chirp "hi!" to some people, take my own seat at my own table and stick my nose into the book. There, I was transported to a world of stories - some comic, some poignant, some familiar, some less so. I was a bit discombobulated when a work mate said, "What are you reading?" And I mumbled into myself with eyes far away, so unlike my usual work self, "Just a book", showing her the cover and hoping she won't take it from me to flick through, to find me in there, to force me to be pleased about my inclusion in the collection with her, whom I care nothing for, when I have not told most of my friends nor indeed any of my family, except one of my sisters. Thankfully, she says, "hmm, interesting", in a way that indicates she finds it very UN-interesting. I walked off without saying anything else.

I'm not exactly sure why I haven't told many people. I told my sister as an afterthought, at the end of a telephone conversation, about two months after I knew my piece was included. I told friends at random, and I'm not even entirely sure who I've told, and who I haven't.

I wrestled with whether to give my full name to the piece, or a link to this blog. I kept most of the wrestling to myself, although I did precis my thoughts for my partner. As usual, he helped me order my thoughts, and come to a conclusion.

Reading through the book gives me the same odd feeling I have mentioned before, when viewing a migrant exhibition: a depressed sort-of lassitude mixed with urgent inspiration. I can do this, people are interested in my stories. But I don't have time. I'm not good enough. My writing is mundane, imprecise, amateurish. My stories are so similiar to all these. It will bore everyone. I'm just flailing about the place, pulled in a myriad directions. I'm not that passionate about my family. I'm not that passionate about my work. I'm not that passionate about my self, or the struggles I've been through to become happy about being me.

I love my family. But they deserve their privacy.

I'm okay with my work. And not stupid enough to jeopardise it on my blog.

I'm reconciled with my self, and if I'm completely honest, quite happy about being me, and for most of my life have been so. Hell, I never struggled very hard. I had a big, accepting, loving family. I went to school in a large multi-cultural community, where if you called me chink then I called you whitey, and we were square. The cuts never cut much deeper than skin, because I have a reserve of strength, because I fought, because I was me, and I have always been okay about that.

Don't buy the book for my story. You've probably already read it, and if not, just click on that handy link up top. But do buy it for the whole collection. There are some duds - there always are in any collection - and your duds will differ from my duds, because, you know, we're different people and we have different tastes.

Requiem for an Olympus C750

En route to the UK, my partner and I paused in Borneo to climb Mt Kinabalu - South East Asia's highest mountain. We were in Malaysia in the wet season. And boy, was it wet. We traipsed about Kota Kinabalu in the lovely drizzle. The drizzle is warm in South East Asia. It's near the equator after all. The UK drizzle is, at the moment, cold. It is hard to describe as 'lovely'. Matter of fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and call UK drizzle downright miserable. But I digress. Kota Kinabalun drizzle was a relief from the excessive heat and humidity. It sizzled off our hot skin.

The start of our ascent of Mt Kinabalu was from a tourist resort at approximately 1500 metres. When we arrived, the rainforest drizzle was more of a downpour. We were overnighting at this tourist resort and then starting our ascent the following morning. I had our lovely Olympus camera, a hand-me-down from my sister, which I bore much affection for (the camera, that is; well, I bear affection for my sister too, but that's de rigeur). It was encased in a Crumpler Sporty Guy 0.6 (can't find a picture of it on the interwebs, but it pretty much looks like this). I do not think that I have waxed lyrical about Crumplers on this blog before, so here I go.

I love Crumpler bags. Let's get that out of the way first. I am not objective. Their advertising is silly (at least it is in Australia) and it was a company started by two Geelong cyclists. They have adorable names for their bags, such as The Wonder Weenie (no longer being made), The Seedy Three (their original) and the Barney Rustle (an updated version of the Wonder Weenie and which is my everyday bag). Their logo is a stick man with wild hair. Their bags are made out of what they call 'Chicken-tex'. It is waterproof. Their bags - or at least the Barney Rustler - is waterproof inside and out.

I know this because, a while ago now, I put a 600ml bottle of water into my Barney Rustler without properly securing the lid and all the water came out. At the time, I was on the bus, heading into the city. I only discovered the water when my phone rang and I tried to locate my phone. I put my hand into what felt like a sink full of water. Withdrawing my hand in surprise, I began to quickly extract the usual contents of any bag I carry - wallet, keys, novel (oh oh), diary, phone (still ringing), miscellaneous receipts, pens, highlighters, water bottle (now mostly empty, usually full) - scattering them all over the seat beside me. As we were pulling into a stop, I leapt out of my seat and ran to the exit door calling out to driver, "Please wait!" (thereby attracting the attention of everyone who had not already watched me whipping random items out of my bag) and decanted the water in a slosh onto the road. My bag was only wet on the inside. No water had seeped outside. And if I had wanted to, I could have saved that water. That's how waterproof the Barney Rustler bag is. I got bemused stares and a few smiles from my fellow commuters as I returned to my seat. Oh, and one soggy novel.

Back to the main story -

The Olympus camera was inside a Sporty Guy, artfully worn around my neck and diagonally across my body in the time honoured way of tourism. Because I believed it to be inside a waterproof case, I just kept it about my neck while wandering around the rainforest. I did not take it out to take any photos, because then it would have got wet. I could have tucked it inside my lovely red raincoat, but I did not do that. Later that night, I took the camera from its bag, only to discover that the bag was waterlogged. So, the Sporty Guy is also waterproof inside and out. The camera is a wee bit bigger than the bag. The bag, therefore, does not close properly around the camera. Water seeped in at the edges and then stayed in, bathing the camera for goodness knows how long. Unsurprisingly, but sadly, the camera died. We mourn the passing of the Olympus C750.

It took me ages to buy a new camera. I um'ed and aah'ed and Googled this and that and read heaps of reviews. Eventually, I just went to the little camera store near my place of work, which I knew to be more expensive than the 'high street' chains but from whom I got great service. Great service and an independent store meant I was happy to pay a little bit more for whatever I ended up buying. I bought a Caplio R5. Mostly, I bought it because, for its size, it has a great optical zoom - 7.1 x - and its macro function was very impressive. I took lots of photos of my index finger in the store. I take rather a lot of photos of flowers, and the macro function is my favourite camera function.

The Caplio's case.
Two demonstrations in one: my love of macro and the little Crumpler guy.

I've had the Caplio R5 for almost a year now, and I don't love it as much as the Olympus. Matter of fact, I don't love it at all. I just tolerate it, and it, me. I do continue to be impressed by its macro funtion. And it is very compact: fits nicely into my hand. The Olympus was bulky. But that was just part of its charm.

And one other problem with the Caplio: my partner dropped it, so now there is a dust speck on the lens, which affects how we frame photos and also means we have to digitally manipulate photos before posting onto the web or printing. And that's a hassle.

I am contemplating purchasing another camera. But one part of me - the frugal part - is tsking about it because the Caplio works fine, and, if I'm honest, pretty well. Except in low light. It's really rubbish in low light. Another part of me - the gear geek part - really wants a new toy to play with.

I thought I had decided that I would buy the Fuji Finepix s8000 - it has an 18 x optical zoom. But the reviews are less enthusiastic then I would like them to be and Amazon.co.uk don't sell it at the moment. Had Olympus' monster zoom camera got anywhere near the rave reviews of the Fuji Finepix, I would have bought it with barely a bat of the eyelids. On reading more reviews, I shifted my loyalties over to the Fuji Finepix s9600 - it has a 10x optical zoom and the reviews are very positive. And Amazon sell it. But Amazon don't sell the memory card. So, I am back to deferred position again, and thinking about what camera to purchase.

Do you have one you would rave about?

Caveat: I don't want an SLR. I hike and I don't want to carry a lot of gear. Because I need that precious weight for my food.

Bullets of Spring

• When ever I read another blogger's bullets, the They Might Be Giant's song, Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love, starts running through my head. Specifically (Freudian?) this bit runs through my head:-

Bullets from a gun

Bullets through the atmosphere

Here they come

John, I've been bad

And they're coming after me

Done someone wrong

And I fear that it was me

Sapphire bullets

Bullets of pure love

• Actually, that's pretty much the entirety of the song.

• It is spring! There are yellow daffodils and purple and white crocuses everywhere. Blackthorn is out, magnolias are budding and the robins, with their proud orange chests, are back.

• Even though it is spring, it is still bitterly (according to me) cold. It still looks like winter outside my office window becuase the sawn off tree has no buds and the tree beside it looks like whoever waters it has been doing a rather poor job.

• Our herbs on the kitchen windowsill are, however, very pleased to greet spring. My oregano leaves are almost a centimetre in diameter, the mint is growing new shoots everywhere and my laxoleaf's leaves are the biggest I have ever seen them. My Hungarian black chilli also has lots of new, pretty purple flowers.

• I am trying to ascertain the effects of Bokashi juice on my herbs. They've been watered with Bokashi juice twice in the last three weeks. Unfortunately, the watering coincided with the arrival of (ever-so-slightly) warmer weather and sun, so I don't know to what I should attribute the enthusiastic growth.

• I'm inlcined to attribute it to the Bokashi juice, except that I know the herbs did this last year too, sans juice.

• The Bokashi is otherwise going swimmingly, thanks for asking. We have almost filled our first bucket, and will need to move onto the next one.

• It only took us three weeks to fill our bucket. We are obviously not your average family. My partner hypothesises that our accelerated filling of the bucket is because we prepare almost all of our meals from scratch (i.e. no pre-packaged stuff). I think it is because we are greedy and eat too much.

Me and Hot Beverages

Just before Christmas, I sat late in my office waiting for the cleaners, so I could wish them a Merry Christmas. As I sat there I started thinking, what if they did not celebrate Christmas? What if I upset them? And I did not have anything to give them, either, because I had been avoiding the shops in the lead up to Christmas so I didn't have any chocolates or other sweets to proffer with my cheery Christmas wishes. Heck, I don't celebrate Christmas. I decided I would wish them a happy break. And then I wondered, do they get a break over Christmas?

After all this navel-gazing, I did not end up wishing any of the cleaners a happy Christmas / couple of days break / accidentally insult them, because no one came to clean my office while I was sitting there. I gave up, half relieved, half disappointed.

I like our cleaners a lot. We get along like rather apologetic houses on fire. Most evenings, if I'm here when they come round, there are a series of apologies. They knock on my office door, and I call out, 'yep?' which is what I call out whenever I hear a knock on my door, whether it's partner, trainee or cleaner. They all get a, 'yep?' The door opens a crack and a head peers in furtively. The head could belong to any of the cleaners who come through: the one collecting dirty mugs, the one who empties the bins, the one who wipes the surfaces, the one who vacuums. Immediately, the head will apologise and begin to retract away. "No, no," I call out. "Come in. Sorry I'm still here." They say sorry again and start doing whatever it is that they're there to do. When they leave, they apologise one more time for good measure, and I refuse to accept it and offer my own apologies. Usually as I leave the building, I see one or all of them again and say a cheery 'Good night!' and they say the same to me.

If the head appearing round my door is the person who collects mugs, she will say, "Any cups?" Sometimes she says to me, "You! Your cups! How many today?" I like the way she asks: it is playfully accusatory. I am guilty of collecting mugs. I have my first hot beverage in the morning before work; usually a cup of black tea. After the black tea, I have a cup of herbal or green tea. The herbal or green teabag stays in the mug and gets hot water added to it as the day goes on. At some point around lunch time, I have a cup of coffee. After lunch, I frequently have a mug of hot chocolate. Sometimes, when I forget to bring a water bottle, I have a glass of water. If I remember, I return my mugs and glasses to the kitchen as I go about my day. If I don't, the mugs collect on a little side-table I have, which is for my non-work things. I never, ever, put mugs or cups on my work desk. Because I will undoubtedly knock them over when I reach for the phone, or a file, or the Green Book of Relevant Legislation.

The mug-collector has started to learn to read what my collection of mugs means about my days. If I have no cups for her, she says, "Bad day, no time for drinks?" And I will concur, or I will chirrup, "No, I had time today to return everything to the kitchen."

Recently, she poked her head 'round the door and startled me. I looked wildly around for my mugs - there were three. I picked them up to hand over to her and noticed that they were all half-drunk. "Ugh," I said, "Sorry, they're disgusting." She looked at me amusedly and pronounced, "Today, you had a very bad day." I grin at her, "Yeah. Too many interruptions!" She shakes her head at me and says as she leaves, "Tomorrow you will have a better day."

Lessons Learned

1. When attending at work, on a Monday morning, somewhat earlier than I usually am but not earlier than I should be, and staring out admiring the church spire that I have never before seen from my office window, my thought should not be, "Oh, I've never noticed that I had a view of the church spire before," but rather, "Oh, my goodness, what on earth happened to my tree? And poor Mr Squirrel and his nest?"

It was not until after my cup of tea, as I looked into the distance wondering whether something so rectangular could still be called a spire, that I realised my tree was hacked off at window height - right below the squirrel's nest. I had spent happy otherwise-billable minutes watching a squirrel dart into and out of his* nest, presumably storing up precious nuts for winter. I hope the tree-loppers gave him sufficient warning to move his goodies, and his home, before so brutally demolishing all the top branches. Now the tree is all ivy, and not tree at all, and I have no squirrel to watch nor tits (little sparrow-like birds) to gaze at in contemplative or procrastinatory moments.

* I don't know for certain it's a him. I just prefer giving an animal a gendered pronoun, rather than calling him, "it". I do have a tendency to anthropomorphise. Although I do not seem to have qualms calling babies and young children, whose gender I cannot readily identiy, 'it'. I think I need to re-examine my pronoun usage. In my defence, babies and young children grow up to articulate their own identities; animals and inanimate objects (which I also tend to anthropomorphise) rarely do, at least not comprehensibly to me.

2. When it is winter in England, and you are all warm and snuggly and able to walk about in a t-shirt inside your heated home, it does not mean you can walk outside (for example to the shops for some mozzarella cheese) in the same t-shirt with nary a jumper, nor a coat, nor a hat. Gloves and scarf would have been uneccessary, however, as it was only 11 degrees, and not single digits. Gloves and scarves are only necessary for single digit weather.

I still forget that the temperature inside is not at all reflective of the temperature outside. In our home in Brisbane, the weather outside came right on inside. Some winter nights were rather chilly, but hardly life-threatening. The wooden walls did nothing to insulate us. In our flat in England, there is double-glazing (two panes of glass on the windows), and brick and mortar walls, and strange 'night-storage' heating, which doesn't quite seem to work (the storage part; the heating part works fine).

We had no appropriate* cheese for our dinner of pizza, and as I had just arrived home from work, I voluteered to go down to the local corner store. Somehow, the fact that I had peeled off my layers (windproof jacket, fleece jumper) did not alert me to the cool weather outside. I just put my shoes on again and walked out. It was a fast walk to, and from, the shops. I suppose I could have gone back inside for a jumper and coat once I had exited from the flat, but the cold didn't really hit me until about 10 metres from our front door. And then I realised I was an idiot. But an idiot who was getting more acclimatised to the cold. So, plus and minuses.

* We had nettle and garlic flavoured cheddar, and parmesan, either of which would have been fine if I were lazy, but I was feeling all energetic-like.

3. I feel that lessons should come in threes. Sadly, there is no third lesson.

A reflective moment

It's the season to be reflective. So this is me reflecting.

What a miserable blogging year I had. It started off oh-so well, with a blog every week. Every week! And then I discovered (in no particular blameworthy order) Facebook, Online Scrabble, and English summers. There was also the minor matter of my ongoing work-life crisis*, which I am still contemplating whether or not to blog about.

*That's crisis in the current newspaper language. In that it's been stop-start since the beginning of the year and no one is probably going to get hurt, who has not got hurt already.

So, Facebook. It's a great timewaster. I joined just prior to my "becoming a UK solicitor" exams, and spent hours prettying up my profile, loading the books I'd read and movies I'd seen this year and searching the likely and unlikely suspects whom I thought would have joined Facebook. There was a cacophony of internet squeals as old friends from high school and my uni years found me, and kept thinking I was in London. I'm in South East England. Not London. Following on from the internet squealing, I made a number of treks up to London where 'real life' squealing was indulged in, as well as delicious (but rather expensive) meals. My tummy and my heart swelled, and then I returned to my everyday life, one weekend and many pounds poorer. I have, more or less, kept in contact with these rediscovered friends. I am at best a sporadic correspondent (hard to believe, I know), so the mere fact of contact every few months or so is a reasonably good thing.

And then Online Scrabble (or rather, Scrabulous) found me. I don't remember how it all started (the whirlwind of the romance, you see) but, rather quickly, I found myself playing at least 5 games simultaneously. Indeed, I have not played less than 5 games simultatneously since I started playing Scrabble online. This is probably not all that many in comparison to other people. But my time is not my own. From the hours of 9am until 6pm most days, I am required to account for at least 100 six-minute blocks of my time (except for lunch). "Playing Scrabulous" is not a billing code for which I can, ethically, charge clients. I am learning to accept that I will not play a move in every game, every day. And I'm okay with that.

English summers came upon me as a strange, and very pleasant, surprise. Living in Queensland one is not privy to the joy of daylight savings. I guess when one is close to the equator, and generally without seasons anyway, the length or brevity of the day is not really that pertinent. But oh! the length of the English summer days! What joy, what bliss! All those hours to fill with hills to walk on and food to eat and drink to imbibe and friends to visit and music festivals to attend. I had a fabulous but exhausting English summer, in which every weekend - and most weeknights - was filled with some activity. This seeped into English autumn as well, because the trees changing colour was just oh-so exciting, that I had to be out there *looking* at it. And here I am, in the middle of English winter, still pondering the joys of seasons. I love the cold. I grin maniacally as I cycle to work, infecting or disturbing my fellow non-car commuters with my four-year old joy at the frost, the biting cold, and the hope for snow.

And here are some maunderings about me & my work, or my work & my life, or my life, which is mostly my work:-

I remember being quite passionate and *into* my work when I initially started in full-time employment. My job then was more research oriented. I then started work in a private practice firm - I had previously worked in a private practice firm as receptionist / research clerk / general dogsbody and quite enjoyed it. I would have wildly fluctuating levels of enjoyment of my work, but I was also given a lot of freedom to do what I wanted if there was nothing else for me to do. Some days I would be holed up in the library researching, or typing madly, and others I would be surfing the net or reading a novel.

In full-time employment, I worked efficiently and well (I think) and liked best researching an area of law to make a legal argument. My favourite piece was a successful submission to an appeal tribunal: my written argument was incorporated, almost wholesale, into the tribunal's judgment. It was also a great piece of work because I overcame some major personal issues with the client and the facts presented to me, to make that legal argument. I knew when I was able to do that, that one of my major concerns with being a lawyer - the extent to which my prejudices would affect my work - was overcome. That was a great moment for an articled clerk.

I also liked the client interaction and just fitting the facts of their problem to a legal solution. It was, mostly, satisfying work. But there were lengthy periods when I questioned the value of what I was doing. Who was I helping, and why?

Then, I started working in commercial law. Although the work was pretty dry and there was very little client interaction, I found the mechanical work satisfying in its odd way. And it was very clear who I was helping and what I had to do to help them. I was helping a company make more money. Simple. I could put up with it because I knew it was short term, and I got given smaller pieces of research to keep me interested in the law (my bosses knew I liked doing research, and that was supposedly rare). It was like doing factory process work: satisfying when it's done for the simple reason that it is now done. But there's no bigger meaning behind it. Or what bigger meaning there was, was much too long-term and big to be comprehended.

I am now in an area that I believe I want to remain in. But I am not always happy. As a matter of fact, I am sometimes bored. Part of this is my own fault, and not the fault of the work. I could engage myself in it, but I don't. I think some part of me has changed, and I don't love doing this as much as I used to.

The things I like about being a lawyer is fitting a factual problem to a legal solution. What I don't like is that you may not agree with the outcome that you are assisting your client to obtain.

I did say something in a random conversation with my boss which surprised me as being both accurate and true (in that I did beleive it). I said that there is no reason why the people whom we help have to be deserving of that help. If they have the legal right, than we can assist them to assert their right. They don't have to be deserving people. Money should not be the barrier to people asserting their rights - but it often is.

It is very clear who I am helping now - each of the individuals who come my way - and why. It is tangible. But sometimes, I don't agree with it. And sometimes, I don't like it. And sometimes, I'm bored of it. Each of those feelings happens to me every day. And each work day seems to involve some navel gazing on my part. (Navel gazing is also not billable time, in case you're wondering).

Working in the law, on the side of the individual, is not satisfying work. Because you have an almost insurmountable opposition (the case law, the legislative law, the sheer weight of resources on the other side), but you have to believe that your meagre presence is worth something. That asserting a legal right, even if the odds are poor is important to the whole legal structure.

I believe this, and yet it is a hard pill to swallow. To put it into practise everyday is hard.

My 2008 looks set to be more of the same. I don't expect to come to conclusions about how I feel about my work. I do expect to post more often. Let's see how I go.

Happy New Year, all and sundry.

More Randomness (Eight more, to be exact)

Hedgehog has tagged me to do an 8 Random Things meme.

The 8 Random Things meme has a rules list. I don't like rules, especially the kind that suggest chain lettering. I guess that's what memes are: chain blogging. Anyway, I'll post the rules (cribbed from Hedgehog) but I'm not abiding by the rules. So there.

"Rules:
Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged."

Seeing that eight is the number of children in my family, I am going to tell you a random thing about each of them in order of seniority.

1. My eldest brother is the shining child of the family: a first born, a boy and born in the year of the Dragon. All things must go well for this brother, or else he betrays his lucky birth. Thus far, all things have been going pretty well for him. My eldest bro and I bookend our family well: he can do, and has never done, any wrong. I have been rebellious and troublesome since before I could even speak. My father's affectionate term for my mother is: Mother of [my eldest brother's name]. In contrast, my mother's term of annoyance for my father is: Father of Oanh.

2. Next in line is the Black Belt. The Black Belt is born in the same creature year as me (I baulk from typing Chinese Zodiac but I cannot think what else to call it. In Vietnamese, I would say he was born in the same year as me, but that suggests he is my twin.) This means that he is exactly twelve years older than I am. What else that might mean, I do not know.

3. Finally, a girl! I have great admiration for my eldest sis. She brought me up, is a wonderful mother and amazing cook, and she sure knows her own mind. Much like all the women in my family, actually. But eldest sis has been the one who has forged all the paths for the rest of us. By the time my parents got to me, they were too worn to fight my stubbornness.

4. Another girl! Next sister along is the most independent. She lived for a long time with my grandmother and grandfather, rather than our parents. She always held an aura of mystery for me, when I was young.

5. Another girl? This sister was the tomboy of the family. She and sister above pushed my uncle into the river. And held him there. When I was in primary school, it was her task to walk me from home to school and safely back again. She was impatient with my drifting, meandering ways, and my much shorter legs. She often arrived home without me and would toss her head disdainfully when my parents asked after me.

6. What? Another girl? Although this sister was closest to me in age, she felt the furthest away. She always seemed so much more mature than me. I put it down to her being girly; she, to me being pigheaded. I'm right, of course. After adolescence, however, we became, and have remained, quite close.

7. My brother breaks the chain: one more girl and a row and we would have all been princesses. Instead, he is spoiled rotten. This is very lucky for me. I would have made a crap princess.

8. And along comes me. You already know all about me.

I ain't tagging nobody. And no rules are gonna make me, either.

Also, I am going to be absent awhile (I know I've been pretty absent for ages now. Sorry.) I will be home, and filling my guts with my family's cooking: goi cuon, pho, banh xeo, bun nuouc leo, banh canh, crabs, and fabulous Brisbane food of all cuisines!

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Another Book Meme!

Tagged by Lotus Life, who seems capable of magnificent motherhood, full-time work, study and blogging, while I struggle with work and blogging. I suck. But I forgive myself.

1.Hardcover or paperback, and why?

Paperback, all the way. Hardcovers are too heavy: you can't throw them into a bag to take with you, or slip them into a coat pocket, or justify lugging them up a mountain.

In my early university years, and when I was an Arts student, I used to wear a big beige coat that had two enormous pockets. In one pocket, a notebook, my house keys and wallet. In the other pocket, a beat-up paperback and a lollipop. I loved the freedom of those days, wandering the university campus at my leisure, unburdened by a bag and heavy books. I was into Beat literature at the time, so it felt very bohemian to be so unencumbered. The lollipop was to keep me going because I was too poor to buy food: the sugar sufficed until I got home.

I became known in my Classical Mythology class as "The Lollipop Girl". I did not know anyone in the class, so I used to sit alone, up front. The first few tutorial sessions that I went to did not suit me, so I changed. And the first time I introduced myself to my new tutorial class, one of the other classmates piped up with: Oh! You're Lollipop Girl. It's good to know your name at last.

2.If I were to own a book shop I would call it…

Ugh. I'm crap with titles / names. I would probably ask everyone I knew for suggestions, or some random conversation would titillate me and that would become the book shop name. And it would be rather convoluted, and probably not very catchy. Kinda like the title of this blog.

My bookshop would also be a tea room & cafe, pho kitchen, laundrette and cinema. Everyone who wanted to could hang out there for as long as they liked, with nary a purchase required. The tea room would have bird cages, but without birds, because I can't abide the thought of birds in cages. Maybe the bird cages would double as lamps. Long benches and chaise lounges and comfy arm chairs and cushions and lots of little tables would be dotted all over the place, and bookshelves of all sorts and sizes randomly abound. Turning a corner would confront one with a new vista of books and great chairs on which to sit.

And it must be a second-hand book shop. I will know every book that has come into the shop, but I will resist the temptation to alphabetise or categorise them, wishing instead serendipitous book discovery on my customers. I sort of want my book shop to have a cat, but I don't like that cats kill wildlife. So I'm torn on the cat front.

There will be tea of every imaginable description, and teapots, collected from charity stores, of all kinds. Oh! And the coffee paraphernalia. Lots of that too.

My cinema will be cosy and have sofas and side tables. I will show an eclectic selection of film: from anime to horror, art-house to thrillers, with a smattering of period drama thrown in.

And there will be a laundrette because every one needs clean clothes.

3.My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…

I really like a particular quote from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The quote is about both Atticus and his relationship with his children. It is written initially in high-faluting language and then ends in a great twist of simple childish slang, jerking us straight back to Scout's perspective.

Jem and I were accustomed to our father’s last-will-and-testament diction, and we were at all times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our understanding.
"Huh, sir?"

Like a lot of lawyers, I suppose, I love To Kill A Mockingbird. I identified quite keenly with Scout, and Jem was definitely my older brother, who is wiser and kinder than me, and whom I worship. Scout is a reading, blustering, naive and occasionally thoughtless, but mostly decent-hearted, tomboy. There's a lot of me in her.

4.The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…

Roberto Calasso. He is very much alive, and must have a lively, inquiring mind. He is the archetypal polymath, I think, and I would melt in his presence.

5.If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be…

Eh. I probably would not bring the SAS survival guide. I'd bring my Ba.

Book-wise: I really find this prompt an incredibly difficult one. I just can't get past the idea that if I'm on a deserted island, I probably did not plan to be there so I wouldn't know what book I will have with me. And it will have to suffice, won't it? It's somewhat contrary, because I don't have any difficulty hypothesising about an author whom I would like to lunch with, or detailing my imaginary bookshop/tearoom/cinema.

I know that the idea behind the prompt is what one book could I read over and over again, and which would keep me from going insane all on my putative lonesome; I just can't think of one that would fit that bill.

6.I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…

held my books and kept them dry in the shower! yeah!

7.The smell of an old book reminds me of…

other old books: The Life Line Book Fest! I have posted on this over here.

8.If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…

I usually want to be a character in every book I am reading, although not always the lead, and usually someone who is already remarkably like me but better in some way.

9.The most overestimated book of all time is…

The last Harry Potter. Enough said.

10. I hate it when a book…

has lost pages in the middle and you did not know about it when you bought it.

I once purchased a second-hand novel by Richard Brautigan, without realising that it was 'seconds' rather than second hand. My partner started reading it first and churned his way through the first 100 or so pages only to find pages 101 - 157 (or thereabouts) missing. I have never seen him so upset with a book in my life. He threw it across the room, then retrieved it, only to tear at it and, dramatically, bin it. I'm glad it was not me who started reading the book. I'm not sure I would have been so restrained.

I'm craparama at tagging. But I think Katie over at Minor Revisions should give this one a go, to distract her a little from her woes, and also Galaxy, if she can incorporate it into her current segues, and N.T if she can be bothered - (in my comments, as her blog is not a talkie-one).

Clearing my head

At the beginning of this year I made a wee promise to myself in relation to this blog: I will post regularly. Up until the last post, I was doing reasonably well; not frequent but at least regular. Then it all fell apart.

I don't have any good excuses. It just happened.

Partially, I have been distracted by thinking about my future. It means I am unable, and unwilling, to think too hard about anything else.

I don't like posting when I have not thought something through and much of what thinking I did do this month was only half thought. I will probably find this post unsatisfactory when it's done, but I have decided I should write, and post, irrespective. It will be what it is, and then I will be back here writing posts that will interest you and satisfy me, again.

Partially, I have been focussed on the mundane aspects of existence. Eating, sleeping, working. And repeat. It does not make for exciting writing, nor is it overly inspiring. I spend my workday planning what I will eat for supper. I spend my time cooking my supper thinking about my workday. I spend my time eating my supper feeling sleepy. I sleep dreamlessly and wake unrefreshed.

Partially, I have been obsessively on Facebook. I am learning to regulate myself - but I do have an addictive personality. It's frightening when the first thought on getting home is: I wonder if so-and-so has played their move in our Scrabble game?

Partially, my partner and I have been making the most of English summers. This means disappearing Friday evenings, or early Saturday mornings to some public-transport-accessible part of England and happily rambling about, and not arriving home until late Sunday, when we have vegemite on toast for tea.

And partially, I have not written on this blog because I have been missing my family too much. When I start thinking of something that I could write on this blog, or something about my family, the corners of my mouth edge downwards and my bottom lip juts out. This blog is too much about my family, and too much about Brisbane. I haven't worked out how to move it on yet, or if I want to. I'm just avoiding confronting the emotions by avoiding the space. It's a tried and true coping mechanism.

Rain

I have started to complain about the English weather, instead of being my usual chipper self. It has rained, almost without cessation since late May. I can recall two weekends of good weather in the last two months.

My umbrella, a farewell gift to me from my former place of work, could take the battering no more. Admittedly, it was neither wind nor rain that was my brolly's death knell. I sat on it. I heard a little crunching sound, which I blithely ignored. The very next time I opened up my umbrella, one arm flopped sadly. Although the brolly still protects me from the rain, the broken arm taps a staccato rebuke upon my head.

My trouser legs are not protected by any umbrellas, broken or otherwise. The bottoms of my jeans get saturated whenever I walk in the rain, which is almost every single day. Unaccountably, my right leg is better at avoiding puddles than my left: my left trouser leg is wet to mid calf; my right only to my ankle.

If there is rain, Brisbane is never far from my mind. Whenever I wake up to rain, my first thought is: I hope that's falling in the catchment area. This is one of my more unrealistic thoughts. I catch myself before the thought fully materialises and chant a little reminder: You are in England. Someone else is living in my house in Brisbane and it's their job to hope that any rain falls in the catchment area.

Existential Angst

Sometimes I wonder why I do what I do. I am a little aggrieved that I still experience this level of adolescent angst about my place and value in the world. Surely I would have (should have) grown out of this? Surely one reaches a point in one's life where one can say: Righto. Here I am and this is what I do and I am content.

Part of my problem is that I just don't like full-time working. It's not that I am innately lazy (at least, I hope not).

There is so much that I want to do, and learn, and read, and write, and observe, and muse, and create - and full-time work does not allow me the time to do very much of it, and sometimes, it does not let me do any of it.

And sleep. I resent sleep too. Why do I need so much of it?

Doubling Up

I have to own up. I have received some awards, for which I feel very flattered, and a little taken aback. Because I get taken aback, I try not to think about it. Then I get hit with the same award.

I am a rocking girl blogger.

I am totally chuffed.

Thank you to fellow rockers, Kirsty, from Galaxy of Emptiness, and Hong Lien, from The Lotus Life.


And, er, I have to own up to having received some other awards earlier on in the year when I was still struggling with getting internet connection, a job, a home, that sort of stuff.

I was so flattered and a wee bit flabbergasted by the award I, um, pretended I did not receive it.

That's not entirely true.

I just did not further publicise that I received the award(s).

I was amused, however, that both award givers said almost exactly the same thing about me: [paraphrasing], "Oanh doesn't post frequently, but when she does ..."

So, thank you, to Sume from Ethnically Incorrect - one of the very first kindred spirits I found on the web - and Legal Eagle - who unleashed my inner law nerd into the ether.

I'm going now before my feet twist into a knot, together with my ducking head and I disappear into my own inability to accept compliments.