Camel Toes

M'sister recently emailed me.She had caught a West Indian production of "Carmen" on SBS and noted how exuberant it had been - size 20 sopranos ,she said, still looking sexy in tight pants with camel toes. 

What, I e-mailed back, was a camel-toe - apart from the hoof of a dromedary.(I actually thought- some kind of footwear)

Google it, she replied.

So I did. 

I was taken to a porn site from which I will doubtless be offered penis enlargements and instant erections for the next 20 years or so.

Har har said M'sister, You should have had a filter on your internet.

Useless to point out that my knowledge of the computer falls so short of this that ,to me, a filter is either a coffee strainer or an anaesthetic device.

DOM in gloom over her results- ABBBC- in any other culture perfectly acceptable but in her high achieving circles less than average (I would point out that these are aggregates and by definition she is in the highest 50% of the state)

I was slightly peeved by the revelation that her long nights of study (or so I thought) were mostly spent writing a fantasy novel. All I can say is that if she finally gets published she should profusely thank her mother for support (as if).

Nocturnals

DaughterOfMine has been back from Schoolies for two weeks and is in the inevitable limbo of awaiting her year 12 results.

She has been as sick as a dog for those two weeks and is currently on her third course of antibiotics.

Any suggestion by me that fresh food, exercise and a decent night's sleep (as opposed to eating cheese toasties all night whilst surfing the internet and concocting strange cocktails with the leftovers from the drinks cabinet) might boost her immune system are met with scorn. After all what would I know?

Obviously the problem is that the stupid doctors haven't given her strong enough medicine...and of course she's the first patient to ever say that to me. 

I got up the other morning to find that she had been making gingerbread men overnight.I looked at them and then looked more closely. Each tiny face had a carefully pipetted expression of fear or anxiety - like a little row of Munsche's "Scream"s (only edible).

I raised an eyebrow at DOM. She shrugged. "Well, after all" she said " They do know they're being executed in the morning".

Fish tales

Number one son is living in Sydney's Western suburbs (aka Bogan-ville) . He is rebelling against his parents by becoming a contented lower middle class git.

 Pathognomonic of the syndrome apparently (apart from the more obvious plasma screen TV, X-Box,BBQ and two car (man-like sedan for him, chicky-babe bubble car for her ) garage ) is an interest in fish.In tanks. With complex eco-systems (many involving miniature plastic palaces and ruined temples). 

There are even large chain stores, some dealing only with the complicated apparatus of the fish-lover , others branching into other aspects of what I can only consider to be an unhealthy interest in lower forms of life. If you can't eat it wear it or ride it what could possibly make you spend time with it?

Of course No 1 has a history of this sort of thing . Who could possibly forget the Great Guppy Massacre of 2005? Or the Siamese Fighting Fish fiasco of 2004 which preceded it ?Only his aunt's carelessness with a vacuum cleaner (goodbye 150l tank and a carpet) and a refocussing of his year 12 interests (towards parties and girls) saved us from becoming Fish Paradise.

And so No 1 found himself in the pet equivalent of k-mart looking for a shrimp to clean his windows.

Not for nothing did he do aquaculture in year 11 -when the girl brought out the little fella he looked at it suspiciously.

"That's a yabby" he said.

No, she asserted, it was a shrimp.

He pointed out that he was pretty sure that shrimps were not black with menacing claws and furthermore- if he was correct -that the fate of his existing fish would be decapitation the moment they went to sleep in the presence of their new buddy.

The sales assistant insisted tearfully that it was a shrimp. The manager arrived and looked at the counter. "What's with the yabby?" he asked.

No 1 looked more closely at the girl's badge. Under her name "Mandy" it stated "Bird Dept".

"You don't know anything about fish do you? " he asked.

"Well, " she said defensively "All the other girls are in the toilet."

(He didn't ask).

Exams

Both our fellows failed their exams this week. There was doom and gloom and anger  in the Unit (as you might expect), although they both came to terms with it pretty quickly.Both are from overseas. I think  if they had been from Oz that the anger and disbelief may have lingered a bit longer. 

Australians don't really know how to fail any more (or at least not cheerfully and often as we seemed to).

 Entry to medical school is now based on psychological testing and an interview rather than scores. At medical school nearly everything is a non graded pass.In specialist training assessments are a mishmash of politically correct tickboxing ; robust comments are discouraged; sensitive interviews for the "trainee in difficulties" (usually an overt psychopath) are the recommended course of action (and mostly geared toward reducing the College's liability).

Failure in the primary exam is often the first obstacle that these  people have ever encountered although since most regard the subject matter as immaterial it doesn't have the same devastating impact as failure in the Finals. Failure in a superspeciality exam even more so.

There's another PC subject for med school "How to be a Failure'- maybe you could only pass if you have failed something thus ensuring that nobody has a perfect academic transcript.Fairness rules.