I'm on the fourth week of the radio course and it's going pretty well. It's a lot more sales/advertising focused than I previously expected. I genuinely thought it would be about learning how to use all the technology, but they seem to think that's such a small part of it. Radio as a whole is a mega-business. All the advertising is either prerecorded or read live and is an amazing amount of hard work. There's one person responsible for scheduling all of that stuff and keeping it all flowing and keeping track that KFC isn't advertise next to McDs etc. and at the moment it's all a bit overwhelming when trying to fill in those small spaces of time between songs with; radio tagline, introduce yourself, weather, time, advert, short laugh, intro next song and go. It's high energy stuff and yet when listening to the radio it all goes so seamlessly. The traffic supervisors here in Oz all tend to be women, as well. Hardest job in radio, women dominate. I like that.

I'm still stuttering and stumbling and forgetting to turn off the mic while I call myself a fucking dingbat - but it's ok as there are no regulations against swearing here. I could say cunt a dozen times on the radio and not get fined. People would complain and I may get fired, but it's still completely ok! Also, I'm not on live radio, yet. I've been booking in a lot of time in the studio to practice getting used to talking in that way. I keep trying to imagine I'm just talking to my frineds, but then I don't normally update my friends on the time and weather every 10 minutes.

This is a writing job, something I'm feeling a bit more confident with - although when it was introduced that the station does a majority of the advertising following a slim brief from the client, I was a bit ARG!! But chilled out again because - I Can Write! I write a blog for fuck's sake. I've spent years trying to a write a novel that I struggle to edit and yet radio advertising is 100% edit to fucking essentials or else it'll run over time. So maybe this will be great practice.

I've got to write four 30 second commercials; roughly 70 words each and then present them in a mock radio show in which will be sprinkled some gossip and local events and public service announcements.

I'm a constant adrenaline rush from the second I get there. Ignoring the panic attacks. I'm told it's normal, and the rest of us are all exactly the same. We're all, also, about the same level of crap. I began to read ahead in the and have been practicing for assignments we'll be doing in 2-3 weeks time because I want to be good. Really good. I like being top student. Well, maybe second top student. Top students are often crabby. I need to be high energy and chipper to a fault! At least confidently laid back and fun. I've even gotten into the habit of cruising the Celebrity news online in the morning because the statistics say that Melbourne has far more women that in men
in population and that their number one favorite thing (in the 25-40 demographics) is celebrity news and gossip. True true. Scandalous and a bit shame worthy - only to me because I don't think I'm a gossip whore and I find celebrity gossip vapid and dull, but apparently I'm in the minority. So this morning I was talking about JLo's 11 hour long sex tape (It's not really 11 hours of sex, some of it is her fighting with her Mom which I would find far more interesting than seeing her shagging someone, but again I'm aware I'm in the minority on that) and also about Fergie Ferg who's been married a year and her husband has already been caught cheating with a stripper. *eye roll at cliché* What kind of thrill do women get from this??? Is it really that we like seeing famous people put on pedestals and then knocked off again? What kind of sick people are we in society?

It's fun, I'm enjoying it. It still scares the shit out of me, but I hope that will fade soon. The more practice I get in the studio is better. Shame I have to take Shorty with me. she is a bit of a distraction and she gets bored pretty quick even though she's got crayons, colouring books, Nintendo DS, iPod you name it. She's just not one of those kids who can spend time on her own. Today she was such a distraction I left early, which was dissatisfying as I'd had trouble with the computer in the studio and it wouldn't playback the audio and it took a total reboot to get working again (Damned Windows machines are utter shite). I have that trouble with computers all the time. They love to crash and burn when I get near them. Coincidence, purely!

Have I told you how hot it is here? It's been in the 90's since Saturday. Scorchio! I just thought I'd share that.

Just sharing...

Cicada nymph shell. It was about 2inches/5.8cm long and I thought at first glance it was a big hermit crab. Found this morning while walking to school. i'm now looking forward to hearing the cicada song! We have no cicada is Scotland so it's been 14 years since I've heard them. I used to love hearing them as a kid.




And I shared this one on Facebook but seem to have left my blogging friends out on the delights that is Spider eating Spider!



I saw these two late one night and what I saw was a huge black spider eating a bee, but as it was late I left them to it. In the morning, they hadn't moved, but I had things to do and didn't get back until the afternoon when I noticed they were still there and yet it was a very different scene. The black spider was...smaller. The bee was more visible. Then I realised it wasn't a bee. It was in fact a white tailed spider - nasty wee beastie that does eat other spiders but has a nasty bite of its own that may lead to skin ulcers. So once I figured out what I was dealing with I took pictures, google searched, realised the White Tail is actually a juvenile, then I squished it. The black spider is a timid and harmless black house spider but they are big and scary looking.

Have a nice weekend! (Is your skin crawling? Mine is.)

Let me start off, for those who don't already know, by saying that I fell off my brand new scooter on Monday and sprained my wrist and elbow. that was a great day. We were in the ER for 8 hours. Bring me back the NHS, please! But at least nothing was broken. I had pretty much assumed I had broken my wrist seeing as I'd done it twice before (granted, as a child once at 5 then again at 7, but if felt like yesterday) and it felt just the same.

Class is rather tough, especially for me as I don't know all the local stuff and I'm having to put in extra hours learning all the radio stations, which ones play to what demographic, which are government run and which are commercial. Right now it's a foreign language where thy just talk numbers and letters at me. I imagine foreigner coming to America would be equally confused about the K/W thing for radio stations (K is west of the Mississippi, W is east....at least that was what I what told) but still, when moving anywhere, you have to reaccustom yourself. UK was easier because there wasn't so much variety, at least not until they went digital and then the flood gates opened and there were hundreds to choose from but then they had blurbs like RainbowFM was GBLT, Shaddi was Indian music, etc. and it was part of the signal to get a description. I don't get that here. I've got to figure out the difference between 3AW, JJJ, Nova and FoxFM (Fox is epidemic out here. They run the cable and have the top radio station. It's nauseating.) and then there's the community radio to try and understand and my timescale is limited. (I'm listening while typing via live stream)

We took some time over the weekend to drive down to the Mornington Peninsula and went to a couple of beaches, watched surfers and enjoyed the sunshine (got a bit pink on the back of my neck) and played in the surf a bit. The kids had a blast. They'd never been allowed in the water at Scotland because it's not clean enough, full of glass or sharp stones and just unpleasant for waders. Other people had no problem with it, but I think when you share your beach with washed up baby wipes and tampons, it's best not to risk it. No such issue here - didn't see one tampon. We did see some cool tide pools, and a rock that was full of fossils which may have been an old coral. It was foggy on one side of the peninsula so we'll have to go back again and see it again on a brighter day.

I need to practice my celebrity news skills. I'm not overjoyed about this, but stats say women aged 24-39 are most interested in celeb news than anything else by a far margin. Women! Cut it out already. Celebs are just people. But no joy for me, I have to do it because if it's what people want then I have to blend and mingle in the shallow pool. Wish me luck and sanity.

While living in the UK I couldn't get the View, but here in OZ I can. I also get very up to date Ellen. After watching a few days of them I decided it just wasn't my thing. Ellen is ok, but the constant ad breaks are annoying and I don't feel like she ever gets enough time to dig into a topic. The View is all about digging into topics - but the two Righty/Fundies drive me batshit crazy. I am glad they're sandwiched in between two more sensible types but really - when you have show where one of the panel isn't even sure the Earth is round or flat....you have problems. I've bitched about the stupid that is Sherri before and won't carry on today but damn she is dumb. I just choose not to subject my sensibilities and blood pressure to her and Elizabeth's raving ignorance. YET...

Recently on the View they had a psychic, Laurie Levin on to promote her new book and Barbara interrupted the flow of the interview to ask a very pointed question. Watch the video and tell me if your BS detector doesn't go batshit crazy: Watch it here, then come back, because the fuckers don't let me embed outside the US.

Did you hear it? The alarms going off? Can you imagine?!! Who gives the first sign of "Oh really? Sherri! "And he got married to you?". Having this woman come up to you and tell you the brutal murder of your son was his chosen way of passing in order to open up your heart to care, to then tell him his dead son feels pain at his bad marriage and then...the psychic marries him instead?! That's one hell of a good scam (Or one hell of a dumb guy, but then he was grieving and these types do like to prey upon the grieving.)

I watched that bit and my skin crawled. How utterly vile. Where she says she did research on Levin before their initial interview and no one thinks that would perhaps, maybe, slant her objectivity in a reading??

Mental.

Remember the post I did a wee while back about how Husband and I had a bit of a disagreement over the religion class the kids are taught in Australia? How I wanted to exempt Sassy from taking it, but Husband thought learning about bible stores was important so I enrolled her in the class, even though I think it's stupid? Just to be sure about what the classes were all about I even went to talk to the vice principal to find about the curriculum and he said "It's just bible stories. A bit of fun really. Nothing heavy." Well this morning Sassy says to me "We had our religion class yesterday and the teacher said that when God created the heavens and the stars and everything that that was the Big Bang."


Just bible stories huh? I don't remember Big Bang being in Genesis, do you?

It's back to the VP I go with a letter of complaint. If this class is going to meld cosmology and religion then the school should offer the kids a decent science class that is 100% religion free. As O'reilly says "Just present it!"



You know how OReilly goes on about the peace on earth and Jesus was a "love your brother" kind of guy? But he's wrong because Matthew 10 line 34 quotes Jesus clearly as saying: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Then he goes on to say how families will be cleaved and blah blah blah.

So, I'm going to complain. What else can I do? Pull her out again? Not going to. I prefer to make her smarter by giving her the counter argument on these topics. Want to know why? Because in the end she'll have a lot more respect me if I do rather than letting her carry on in fairy tales and half truths. So let her learn the twisted information coming from her religion class - let her come home with a mountain of questions. Let her be able to grow up thinking rationally, sceptically and not be afraid to challenge what she's told. Let her know she can come to her family and get answers. then she will be free to make her own choices based on all the facts.

To help her understand, I'm going to let her watch the 1957 Disney movie Our Friend The Atom. I just watched all fives parts on youtube and it's fantastic! Here - watch!!



Then I hope she'll understand the Big Bang stuff a bit easier as it wasn't rocks and galaxies bursting forth fully formed. Granted, part 5 with the radioactive cows and corn i'll have to explain that's not gonna happen because it's way too dangerous.

There is a limit to the defense of "My religion says so!" and that limit includes DIY circumcisions in your kitchen on your four year old son. And the outrageous conciet of the lawyer who says "...he would try to have the case tossed out on constitutional grounds, saying his client’s religious motive negated any criminal intent."

You'd think he'd have figured out he wasn't a dapper hand at this when he'd already botched his own circumcision! What a complete shithead.

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